


Products of Omega

by AnaVakarian



Series: Mass Effect products [3]
Category: Mass Effect (Comics), Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Afterlife, Alternate Universe, Angst, Archangel (Mass Effect) - Freeform, Archangel is a good guy, Asari Characters, Assassins & Hitmen, Batarians, Blood and Gore, Cliffhangers, Earthborn (Mass Effect), Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/F, F/M, Friendship, Gang Violence, Headcanon, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Interspecies Relationship(s), Interspecies Sex, Krogans, Major Original Character(s), Mass Effect 2, Minor Character Death, Omega gangs, Original Character(s), Partying, Post-Mass Effect 1, Pre-Mass Effect 2, Pre-Shepard/Garrus Vakarian, Rape Aftermath, Sequel, Serious Injuries, Turians, Vanguard (Mass Effect), omega mass effect
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-28
Updated: 2020-10-17
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:49:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 15
Words: 51,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24965512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnaVakarian/pseuds/AnaVakarian
Summary: Omega was her home now: the perfect hideout for the runaway Lieutenant Murphy; a place where the Alliance would never dare to crawl into. Even so, anonymity was a must, especially when she worked for the ruler of that scum place, Aria T'Loak.Or that's what it looked like.A vigilante known as Archangel fought against the gangs and bad guys that flooded the city. Crossing paths with him was just a matter of time.
Relationships: Aria T'Loak/Original Character(s), Aria T'Loak/Original Human Character(s), Garrus Vakarian & Original Character(s), Garrus Vakarian/Original Female Character(s)
Series: Mass Effect products [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1542784
Comments: 37
Kudos: 26





	1. time's running out

**Author's Note:**

> To fully understand this fanfic, I do really recommend reading [Products of a War](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20341147/chapters/48364144) first.  
> ***  
> English is not my first language. I'm open to suggestions and reviews ^^

Alex opened the doors from the AfterLife with a loud thump, completely muffled by the asari electronic music. The red ambient lights, the smell, a mixture of alcohol and different species sweat and the usual swinging of bodies dancing brought memories of other nights in different clubs, when her life was not literally hanging by a thread. The place was absolutely crowded on a Thursday afternoon, even after the events that happened at the Citadel the day before. 

Still with the black oversized sweatshirt on and the ripped jeans - a curious contrast with all the highly dressed up aliens around her - Alex strode swiftly towards the bar, dodging the partygoers. “Aria! Aria T'Loak! I must see her, now!” she shouted to the barman, sliding a 50 credits note over the counter. 

The time was not running on her behalf. 

The busy batarian accepted the overvalued present and tilted his head, pointing to his left. “Good luck with it, human,” he replied on a caustic tone, serving her a shot of some liquor that Alex downed before heading there. 

She saw the krogan in red armour guarding the stairs on the distance, but she passed him without contemplations, her foot on the first step already before the guy was able to react. Obviously, the krogan stopped her on her heels, grabbing her arm without ceremony and jerking her down. “Where the fuck you think you’re going? This is a private area.”

“I must speak with your boss. Let me in,” the human ordered while releasing her arm from the bodyguard's clasp. 

A burst of incredulous laughter was his only reply.

Alex had been trying to avoid a scene, but she really didn’t have time for that… Before the krogan was able to speak for a second time, Alex’s arm shone in purple and, with a subtle gesture of her fingers, the bodyguard was sent flying across the dancing floor, landing nearly 8 metres away from his initial position on an empty area at the other side of the club. Some of the people on the dancing floor looked around in confusion, not really aware of what happened, no doubt effect of the mixture of drugs and alcohol. No one left the place, though. The batarian bartender shouted something at her from the bar, but she couldn’t hear his words, lost in the waves of deafening pounding music.

Alex didn’t stop to watch her doing or to wait for the bodyguard to come back. She climbed up the stairs by twos, reaching the top at the exact same time that another krogan appeared out of nowhere, tackling her down brusquely. The human screamed at the sharp pain in her ribs when she hit the floor and wrestled to free herself from his weight and the grip on her neck with a feral snarl. Once she was about to push him away using her biotics, a heeled boot appeared on sight and she felt how someone stepped on her right arm, stopping her movement. A violet attractive asari with a harsh gesture pinned her forearm under her weight, interrupting the purple biotic shining that had begun to appear on the extremity. Alex stopped her struggling, gasping for air, looking up at the newly materialized character. 

“And who the fuck are you?” the asari asked with a snarl.

The krogan's grip tightened around her neck, making her nearly unable to breathe. Her voice was thinner than a thread, just a suffocated whisper when she finally spoke, recognizing on the asari the person she had been looking for. “Aria… Mordin Solus… Where is he?”

The asari didn’t lift her foot an inch, but made a small gesture with her head, dismissing the krogan. Alex coughed and gulped down air, reaching with her free hand to touch her neck that felt sore and bruised already. “I need to get to Dr Solus… Please,” she begged. 

It’d been more than seven hours already and time was something she didn’t have the luxury to waste.

The asari tilted her head with curiosity, looking at the beautiful but intriguing red-headed woman that laid on the shiny black floor in the private area of her club. She looked fit and her biotics were for sure powerful. Aria tried to place her face and her hair in Omega before, but she couldn’t: the was new blood in that place. A biotic human, a soldier, looking for a named salarian scientist who had recently given up his job for the investigation salarian secret service and was hiding in Omega under her protection. That was a desperate movement: she was being tracked for sure.

“You have come to the big bad wolf cave, leaving behind a path of crumbs for your hunter friends to find us… How much time do you have left?” 

The human look at her analogical watch on her wrist. “ _No omnitool: she was resolved to flee_ ,” Aria thought. Her face looked pale and desperation shone in her eyes and in her voice, even if concealed with efficiency with a hardened gesture.

“Thirty minutes,” she answered dryly. 

Aria didn’t know her at all, but the biotic N7 project had been mentioned in the dark spheres of Omega and was well known for everyone. There was no need to be a genius to put two and two together and realize that the woman under her boot was Alliance property. 

“He cannot help you. The implant is impossible to remove.”

“I don’t want it removed… I just want the locator chip fried.”

Aria emitted a hum of acknowledgement. “Risky, but perhaps effective. Although, why should I risk Dr Solus' life to save yours? What do you have to offer in return that could possibly interest me?”

Aria’s pressure on her forearm disappeared and Alex sat up, rubbing the mark of the sole on her skin. Playing her cards wisely was paramount. “You are in a competition. A fight to rule on Omega. I’ll make you win.” She hadn’t expected Aria to give away Mordin Solus' location without a price in return. How naive would have been to think that... She would have to sacrifice part of her freedom to survive, once again.

The first impulse of the asari was to laugh, amused at her self-confidence. “You have yourself in high opinion. But you are an Alliance deserter… your word means nothing to me. Why should I help you?” the asari said, turning around and walking back to her sofa with confident steps. She sat down, staring at the female human with a smirk.

The indifference on her tone had begun to crack Alex’s hardened mask and her next words were a plead. “Because I’m desperate! And because I’m the fucking best assassin you’ll find. And because I’ll owe you, and I’m willing to pay my debt.” Her tone was a deep low growl, knowing that every minute spent arguing with the asari would reduce her chances to escape. 

Only twenty-five minutes left. 

“Please, I’m begging you. I don’t want to go back to them. I cannot.” Alex’s breathing had become more laboured, as she was trying very hard to swallow the knot on her throat, a mix of frustration and anxiety. The pain on her ribs didn’t help, either.

Aria didn’t stop smirking at her under the dim red light and the hypnotic music beat.

A far too long silence happened before she spoke again. “54, Treston close, ground floor. In the slums. He’ll be waiting. I would grab a taxi if I were you. You’ll be back here as soon as you are done.” The asari she retrieved the datapad from the table, looking away from her: a gesture that Alex took as an invitation to flee.

The human stood up swiftly, putting the hood back on, holding her pained torso with a hand, and ran towards the door stumbling with everyone in the club. She flew towards the taxi stop, jumping the queue and ignoring to the complaints and creams, and barked instructions to the driver, slipping another 50 credits note in his hand. 

Fifteen minutes left and Alex could feel her heart racing in her chest when she found herself in front of the doors of what seemed to be an abandoned warehouse. She slammed them opened, surprised that they were not locked, and stepped into the darkness.

Her stomach churned and she felt about to throw up: it was empty. 

Until a rushed salarian came into the scene from a side room, startling her. “Ah! You must be her. No time for introductions. No time to waste either. But first things first: how much time do I have?”

Dr Mordin Solus stood in front of Alex with a white scrub and an impatient gesture. She pulled the signal jammer out of her pocket and checked the small screen on it, noticing how her hands shook. The sign of the battery was nearly empty. “Ten… fifteen perhaps… I don’t know for sure,” she said, out of breath as the krogan had really screwed up with her ribs. On the worst-case scenario, once her locator was back online, Anderson would send armed forces looking for her. She was aware there was a secret operational Alliance detachment in Omega, so it wouldn’t take more than ten minutes to reach her. She was not ready to imagine Hackett’s response to her escape: a life in the military without shore leaves, losing her privileges, being reduced to a prisoner forever... The thought made her shudder. 

She would not be back: that was not an option.

“Ten minutes... Mmmhh... Complex matter. Perhaps with some more time… It can’t be done here: I’m not risking my work for you. Follow me: we’ll go somewhere else.”

The human strode after the salarian in deadly silence, her heart heavily thumping in her ribcage. She had researched about the team that designed the implants, helping Dr Chorban and Dr Alestia, and Dr Solus’ name came up frequently as an external genetics and technology consultant. However, he left the research team after the first human subject’s deaths. Differences in opinions with the lead team, is what Alex read on the report. It had been quite difficult to track the salarian's steps back to Omega and utterly impossible to find his hideout on the planet. But if someone knew where to find people, that was Aria T’Loak, the kingpin on that den of depravation called the AfterLife.

Alex followed him out of the warehouse, walking through what looked like a theatre where the doctor collected a surgical set and some medigel. There were some vacant hospital beds on the next room and they both exited by a rear door that guided them to a dark alley. They ran towards the perpendicular passage and the doctor opened another door, ending in a trashed storage room. 

“Not the best place for surgery, but it will do. Remove your upper clothes: I need access to the implant. I’ll set up all that I need in the meantime.”

Alex rushed to take off her hoodie and her t-shirt with a pained grunt because of her for surely broken ribs, leaving the nearly-dead jammer on one of the crates. Then, she tied her hair up, exposing the nape of her neck, while Dr Solus dragged a couple of boxes together in order to create an improvised bed. He sprayed them with antiseptic and placed a scalpel and some other surgical instruments by hand before looking at the battery left on signal jammer with worry: less than five minutes. He lowered over his eyes a magnifying device, similar to swimming goggles.

With a wary look around the setting and suddenly aware of the storyline and the characters involved, the realization of how at risk her life was actually hit her, making her painfully sick: that unknown alien was about to cut her neck open, digging in her spinal cord to find the implant and tinker with it in order to trash the location microchip while trying not to damage anything else. There were too many things that could go wrong… The bitter taste of bile crept up her throat and the human was about to throw up when the salarian stared at her, his eyes ridiculously big behind the goggles. “Lie down, please. Aria insisted on saving your life and I have to comply. I don’t think is fair what they did to you all. This could be my redemption. But we don’t have much time. Lie down. On your stomach.”

“Thanks,” she weakly replied while lying on the improvised stretcher, the rush of adrenaline making her body shaky all over.

“No thanks needed. I also want the best possible outcome for this. Now, relax.”

The cooling spray on the back of her neck numbed the whole area but, even so, she was able to feel the blunt pain of the scalpel cutting her skin and muscles open. The worst part was the sight of blood that trickled down her neck, pooling at the boxes under her. More spray and an approval hum came from the salarian. “Beautiful job. Beautiful. Perfect connection, DNA compatible without any kind of doubt.” She felt a pull on her spinal cord and a sharp nervous pain invaded her back and legs, making her whole body shake. “Perfectly fused with the nervous system, I see… Well, no need to worry. The location chip is easy to find and easy to hack. Don’t move, now: it will be fatal.”

At the same exact time when he connected a magnetic wire to her implant, a beeping sound coming from the jammer warned them about the end of the battery’s life. The salarian just kept working as if nothing happened, but Alex’s heart rate and blood pressure raised: she was starting to feel extremely lightheaded. 

“Five minutes. This code… Clearly not my doing. Easy to hack. Rustic and breakable. Chorban’s style. He should carry on with the genetics and leave the computing to the experts… You might feel some discomfort. It will hurt. Don’t move.” 

Suddenly, as if an electric current had passed through her whole body, Alex jumped on the boxes, feeling an incredible pain along her backbone. She had been shot, leg-impaled, buried alive and suffered diverse types of serious injuries, but she had never felt a pain like that before. The human clenched her teeth, repressing a scream in her throat. Then, the world blurred on the edges and Mordin’s non-stop talking began to muffle in her ears. 

She passed out.

***

“Sir, we’ve got her. Omega. The slums district. 43, Rest close,” Officer Lin was in Hackett’s office behind three different laptops, trying to get a visual on the street.

“Omega? What the fuck! How did she get there? What has she used?” 

“A jamming device perhaps. Something small to interfere with her implant. That would be my guess,” Lin answered, looking at the screen that showed the beeping signal and the intermittent red dot on the middle of the mass of trashed buildings in that part of Omega City, looking at the Admiral after. 

Hackett was walking impatiently up and down his office like a wild animal in a cage, snarling and grunting sporadically. When the Second Lieutenant Murphy didn’t turn up for dinner, he hadn’t been extremely worried: perhaps she was just drinking or already pissed after the battle. It wouldn’t be the worst situation considering it was Murphy they were talking about. But at breakfast, their men hadn’t been able to locate her yet: her omnitool was off and she was not in her quarters. That’s when he decided to use her location microchip in order to get her whereabouts. But it had been impossible: as if she had disappeared from the face of the Citadel. It was not an error on the chips: all the other nine Alliance biotics were on sight on different parts of the galaxy. 

But Murphy was gone. 

And both, Anderson and him, were sure it was not a malfunction, nor a mistake either. While the Citadel was still accounting the injured and corpses on the streets, the Alliance had his whole tech department revising the CCTV footage to get a hint on the Lieutenant. The last sighting of her was walking on the street, heading to the docking area, chucking her omnitool in a litter bin. However, most of the cameras had been destroyed during the attack, so it was impossible to know where she went from there in the middle of the chaos of people fleeing away from the spatial station to go back to their origin worlds. 

“Who do we have in Omega?” Hackett asked aloud.

“Team Alpha is based there, Admiral. With Commander Trevor in charge,” Captain Anderson informed. 

“I can get Commander Trevor online in no time, Sir,” Officer Lin uttered, tinkering with his omnitool. 

“Do it. Put him through when he answers.”

“Hackett, we cannot make a scandal out of this… Is not the time, and Omega… definitely not the place, either. Too many hostiles,” Anderson advised him. Hackett knew he was right: discretion would be mandatory.

“Commander Trevor is on the line, Sir.”

Hackett gave a last look to Anderson and sighed before speaking.

“Commander, we have a situation in your area. Code purple. I repeat: code purple. And discretion is paramount: we don’t want to make a scene. The target has to be recovered alive. I repeat: the target has to be recovered ALIVE. Do you copy?”

“Loud and clear, Sir. Who’s the target?”

Hackett looked at his omnitool, reading the address where the chip reported Murphy’s presence while Lin sent the coordinates to the military men on the other side of the line.

“Target is a female, human, 27. Goes by the name of Alexandra Murphy. 43, Rest Alley in Omega city is her current location. Promptness is crucial. We don’t have eyes on her, but we can follow her movements. ASAP, Commander.”

After a second of consideration, Commander Trevor spoke again. “We’ll be there in ten, Admiral,” he said, already moving around in what it looked like military quarters, shouting orders to his men. 

Anderson glanced at the screen where the Lieutenant location was still beeping. On the other one, a small group of N7 soldiers got ready and on the way in less than 2 minutes. Their hideout base was at the outskirts of the city and it wouldn’t take long to reach the placement. But Omega was not precisely famous for its welcoming environment, especially towards military men and law enforcement. Bands and gangs reigned in the massive city, where the power was currently being disputed in between four of the most corrupt and influential ‘businessmen and women’ there. 

Admiral Hackett followed the operation without interfering: those were his men, some of the best in strike missions, comparable to the US marines of his times. Even if his gesture was serious and contained, deep inside he was cursing in all the languages he knew that damned and stupid girl who had stubbornly been a fucking pain in his arse for so many years. 

She was one of the best, together with Alenko. She couldn’t just disappear. He would not let her do that. She would not get her ways. Not while he was alive. 

Captain Anderson leaned on the desk, his eyes fixed on the screen, following the short team Alpha’s trip to the dark alley in the slums. He tapped his fingers rhythmically on the table, giving away his nervousness. That would be a pitiful ending for Alex, as he doubted she would let herself being captured alive. The nervousness grew once the screen that was pinged to the Commander’s cam showed the trashed door with the number 43 on it. 

The silence was tense, both in the Alliance headquarters and within the strike team. 

After some gestures explaining the procedure, one of the N7s pulled the handle and pushed the door open without hesitation. Then, a rush of steps and blurred images with a clear voice on the background. “Go! Go! Go! Put your hands up! Hands on your head. On your knees, you two. On the floor! Don’t you fucking move!”

The visual on the screen was shaky and pixelated. Too bad to see anything properly on it. “Fuck, Trevor. Get close and stay still! Who’s that?” Hackett barked.

The Commander got closer to the two people knelt down. One of them, the human, had the face covered with an oversized black hood and emitted laboured breaths. 

Hackett spoke on the intercom. “The one with the sweatshirt. Hood off. Now!”

Commander Trevor nodded and used the barrel of his rifle to pull the black hood off the head of the target.

Their breaths hitched with expectation.

A young man. Probably high on something, considering his bewildered gesture, his dilated pupils and his junkie face. The other person was just a batarian. Probably just a drug dealer. 

“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! What’s the lecture on the implant!? Where is she?”

“It’s… I don’t know! It’s still there! On the middle of the room!” the IT soldier explained, looking at the screen, absolutely gobsmacked. The red dot still blinked in that room.

“Commander, there’s something here… It looks like an old circuit… or a microchip. A wire is still attached to it. And there’s blood on these boxes…” one of the N7 soldiers explained over the comm.

Trevor moved the chip around the room, being clearly the item who had been giving the fake location. Then, he held the chip in front of his camera for them to see. 

“The software… the one Dr Chorban created for the biotics… it’s there. Someone moved it from the implant and copied it there…” Officer Lin explained. “But that’s not… It’s impossible! They were impossible to hack… not to mention to transfer to another device!”

“Well, obviously someone did it…” Anderson admitted with resignation. “She didn't do this alone, but who…?”

"In Omega? It could have been anyone..." Commander Trevor said on the intercom.

Hackett slammed his hands on the desk and grunted, understanding that they had lost her. 

The Alliance had lost one of its best biotic soldiers. One of its most precious and expensive assets.

Lost in Omega: a forbidden territory, an outlaw city… 

She would be impossible to find.


	2. no one's innocent

Alex drifted in and out of consciousness the whole time. The memory of her blood spilling over the crates, staining her arms and the sharp pain everywhere alongside her nervous system. The worst pain she had ever felt. 

Then, blackness. 

Dr Solus was jerking her arm, helping her to sit up. Dizziness and deep nausea flared in her body, and the skin on the nape of her neck felt tight. Far too tight.

“No time to dress. Put your hoodie on. Cover your head. They are coming. We have to go,” the salarian doctor hurried her, collecting all his blood-dirty instruments and shoving them without care into his bag. She obeyed without hesitation, as automatically as a mech would do, standing up swiftly. The world blurred in the edges and she blacked out, not even feeling the crash with the floor.

The next time she came back to her senses, Mordin was literally carrying her over his shoulders, panting and struggling under her weight. Blood was still trickling down her neck and staining the back of his salarian white scrub in a stream of crimson. 

She gagged at the sight and thought it would be a good idea to close her eyes again until everything was finished.

An undetermined period of time went by.

The bump against the hard, cold floor woke her fully up. Terrified, confused and not understanding where she was, Alex protected herself with a barrier and got her biotics ready to throw a shockwave blindly with a pained whimper. 

“Stop right now, human!” an authoritative voice shouted at her, coming from her left. The cold cylinder of what could only be a pistol barrel rested on her temple. “I saved you. That doesn’t mean I won’t hesitate to kill you if you hurt anyone.”

She didn’t dare to look, partially blinded by the bright light. Her heart throbbed and every sharp inhale was an agony of pain. She was shaky and sweaty, her hair sticking weirdly onto her neck. With a simple look down her chest, she realized she was wearing nothing under the half-zipped hoodie except a massive bruise on the left side of her ribcage, right where the pain was excruciating. 

The dazzling whiteness started to take shape and her eyes were able to finally focus on a figure. A human. Male in his thirties. Unarmed. His hands over his head on a rendition gesture. Same clinic uniform than Mordin Solus.

Having her arm stretched out with her biotics became so exhausting that she had to lower it down, deactivating the barrier.

Pain on her neck. Pain on her spine. Pain on her ribs. 

Pain was good. 

“Doctor Solus...?” she mumbled with a hoarse voice.

Alex felt the pistol moving away from her head.

The human male in front of her finally lowered his arms with a loud sigh of relief.

“Yes. You don’t have a good waking up. Not surprised. N7… good soldiers. Lethal. Very best of the human army,” the salarian blurted, as fast as they all usually spoke. 

Sudden and very sharp exhaustion invaded her and she dropped onto her knees.

“This is insane, Mordin.. Have you made sure the locator is not working?”

“I couldn’t. Didn’t have time to check. We had to flee.”

“They’ll kill us if they find her here!” 

“I’m aware of the inconvenience. We’ll know shortly, I suppose.”

Her mind was terribly blurred, that bad that she couldn’t think straight. Alex emitted a miserable moan and Mordin looked pitifully at her as if she was a hurt pet. “We have to take her to my bedroom. I need your help, Daniel.”

The human male grumbled but squatted down together with the salarian. Both men grabbed Alex by her armpits and lifted her with a groan.

“For Christ’s sake! She’s heavy! How have you carried her here?”

“Salarian strength. Not as weak as we look...”

They dropped her in the bed, on her stomach, and she didn’t complain. She couldn’t. Her tongue was stuck at her palate, dry as hell. 

Mordin scanned her with his omnitool. “Fever, 104,1. Blood loss, 900ml. Not enough to be in shock. She’ll recover… Mmmh... Three smashed ribs. No brain damage. No neuronal damage. Spinal cord: intact. Eezo nodules: intact...”

“Well, she stood up and aimed at me with her biotics. If that is not a good sign, I don’t know what it could be...”

The salarian utterly ignored his sarcastic tone. “IV with saline will be needed. Which antibiotic is best for humans?” Mordin asked.

“I’d say amoxicillin, 500mg. if is she’s not allergic. And a shot of paracetamol too: 1g to lower the temperature. All intravenous. We should wash and sterilize her neck after applying for medigel.”

They both seemed busy for a little while around the room, Alex just perceiving it on the corner of her eye. Mordin poked her arm with a syringe and the man called Daniel cleaned her neck with a gauze. Once she felt the cold goo of the medigel being applied on the open surgical wound, the relief was nearly immediate.

Suddenly she felt very tired and drowsy. But she couldn’t pass out. Not again. Gathering the little strength she had left, she whispered a name. “Aria…”

“What?” Daniel asked, baffled.

“Rest, Alexandra. I’ll deal with her for now.”

***

Omega was a spatial station built in the husk of a metallic asteroid, once rich in element zero. Exhausted of the mineral, just the station remained. It was a paradise for outlaws and terrorists,  _ crème de la crème _ of criminals and battle royale ground for gangs that strived for the control of the dumpster. 

The cycles that other stations had, imitating day and night hours, didn’t apply to Omega: there was always nighttime, independently of the Citadel Council time agreement. 

_ Alex was laying in a cot in a medical facility, and she couldn’t move at all. IVs poked out of both her arms. One had a luminescent blue liquid pumping into her body. The other was extracting her own scarlet blood. She could feel the blue liquid burning in her veins as it made the way in, like acid. The pain was unbearable, creeping up her hand, her forearm, reaching her chest... On the other side of the windowpane, a group of asaris, humans and salarians took notes on their datapads, watching her, studying her, utterly alien to her suffering.  _

_ She cried for help. She screamed for it. But they did nothing. _

_ When her heart started to burn in the inside, she knew she was going to die.  _

The young woman woke up with a gasp, her head buried into a pillow. Everything still dark around her, her heart raced in her chest with the nightmare and her whole body hurt badly. But that was it. Known pain: not burning acid anymore. 

“Ey, good morning, sunshine! Did you sleep well?” That voice… The human doctor… Mordin’s friend...

“Water… please,” she pleaded. Her voice was raspy and her throat felt extremely sore. Not as much as everything else felt, though. 

Alex tried to turn on her back but the doctor stopped her. “I wouldn’t do it if I were you… Your ribs are still, literally, hanging by a thread. We injected some medigel that should be fixing them right now but I’m sure you don’t want to shatter them again.”

She muffled a groan against the damp pillow and analyzed the situation as coldly as she could, glad that her brain was back at work. Her own damage evaluation was far more positive than the last time she woke up. However, she felt utterly exposed and defenceless, not being even able to sit up or even look at her surroundings. 

“Here, turn your head carefully.”

The incision on the nape of her neck hurt inside her skull, but not as bad as before, though. She propped herself on her elbows, rising enough to grab with her lips the straw the human offered her. 

The water tasted like shit. 

“Thank you… Where am I?”

“Mordin’s house. I’m Dr Daniel Abrams, Mordin’s assistant. Welcome to Omega!” Wittiness and superficial. Just what she needed.

“The Alliance…”

“Don’t worry. No one has come looking for you so, I’m gonna guess that you are not being tracked anymore.”

“It worked?” Alex found it difficult to hide the incredulity in her tone. 

“That’s what it seems… Does anything hurt?”

“ _ I _ hurt…”

Daniel chuckled. “Your ribs were pretty screwed up. I’m surprised they didn’t puncture your lung. What did you fight with? A bloody krogan?”

Alex dug in her memories. “Well, as a matter of fact…”

The human snorted loudly and she, on the corner of her eye, how he shook his head with disbelief. “You are fucking crazy… I can see why Aria wants you on her payroll...”

“ _ Aria wants you on her payroll… _ ” the woman repeated quietly, reality suddenly coming back to punch her hard on the face. She was Aria’s property now and she didn’t even know for how long it was for. And she had to comply because no one had made it out of Omega if Aria T’Loak was pissed at them. The sudden picture of the asari telling her to come back to her asap flicked in her mind, flaring all the alarms and raising her pulse wildly. “ _ Shit… I’m still alive… Does she even know...? _ ” 

“Ah! Alexandra! Glad you are better. Any discomfort?”

Dr Solus’ voice took her out of her inner monologue. Even if Alex couldn’t see anyone, her face stuck at the pillow as it was, she perceived movement on her left. 

Daniel didn’t give her time to reply. “Ribs are sore. Her temperature has lowered back to normal. Blood recount is normal, too. Her neck is healing and, first and foremost, we are alive. All of us. Which is good.”

“Thank you, Daniel. Positivism is a must,” Mordin replied in front of his ironic assistant. “Why are you still facing down on the bed?” he asked Alex, baffled. 

She immediately frowned, lifting her head slightly. “Daniel said…”

“Daniel is going to work. He’s got more patients to look after,” the human chortled, walking away.

“You can turn around. Or sit down. Or stand up. Up to you,” Mordin assured.

“But he said that my ribs…” 

“Bye, people!” They both heard the door sliding shut.

“You’ve been out for two days. Your ribs are fixed. Just sore at this point.”

“Fucking bastard…” Alex mumbled, using her arms to prop herself up and scramble to a sitting position. 

“Indeed,” Mordin agreed. “But good human doctor. The best.”

All her body was sore, indeed, and every muscular movement seemed to drain her energy badly, but she was finally able to take a look around the room. The human was right: it was not a clinic, nor a hospital. It was just a bedroom with some medical equipment that had been, for sure, connected to her body at some point during the last two days.

“I… thank you, Dr Solus,” she said after a little while. 

“You can call me Mordin. Aria can be very convincing. You scratch my back today, I’ll scratch yours tomorrow. That’s what you, humans, say, right?”

She nodded. Her neck felt stiff.

“Aria gave me instructions to follow up when you woke up... “ Mordin tinkered with his omnitool and Alex spotted the little symbol for the phonecalls glimmering when he sat next to her on the bed. The screen didn’t give a name, just a number. A rumbling krogan answered the call. “Ah! Hi there. She’s awake. Out of danger too.”

“Good. She doesn’t want her here. Not yet. Too much trouble. I have just sent you the coordinates for the apartment. She will go there tomorrow and she cannot. SHE CANNOT, leave it until all this fuss is over. Have I made myself clear?”

“Crystal clear…Food?”

“Everything’s sorted. Solus, she doesn’t want body marks on her. Change the hair, too. She also enquired about her features… Is it possible…?”

Alex opened her eyes widely. Was that guy suggesting to alter her face? Her frown deepened and she muttered to Mordin a clear ‘no way’ with no sounds. 

“Human not still recovered from the surgeries… It would be rash to perform any other. Many risks implied. Dead highly likeable.”

“Ok, ok... Fair enough. Just do the other things. She told me your debt is settled after this.”

“Good. Glad to hear.”

With a final grunt as a farewell, the krogan hung up. 

The silence stretched in the bedroom for some seconds. Alex didn’t ask what his debt was, as well as he hadn’t asked any questions about her either. Desperation is what makes anyone turn into Aria for help. Together with secrets that shouldn’t be revealed.

It was Mordin who finally broke their quietness. “You must be starving. Highly recommended to eat something. I’ll eat, too,” the salarian advised.

“Yes… Ehm, yeah… It sounds good for me...”

Her first attempt to stand up was unsuccessful. But the second one worked well. She felt trembling and wobbly, though. 

“Here,” he offered, extending his arm. 

She grabbed it, unsteadily, and walked a few steps. “I can’t believe you actually carry me here…” 

“I thought I would pass out and we both would die… But I will never confess that.” He winked a big black eye at her with an easy tone, making her scoff.

Mordin guided her towards a stool in the kitchen area and he got hands to work, opening and closing cupboards with decision at a speed that would have made anyone else feel dizzy. In some rather scarce minutes, he rehydrated the rations and heated them in the microwave. He had also made a jug of that vitaminized drink that was so trendy within humans and which she hated with all her might and soul. She looked at it with a grimace when the salarian doctor offered it to her.

“Drink. It’s better than normal water: has vitamins and conceals the flavour. Water is disgusting here.”

She obviously did while lingering her gaze over the table where Mordin was now leaving the plates. “Where did you get the human food from?” 

Due to their hyperactive metabolism, salarians needed a ridiculously high amount of calories in order to meet their body requirements. What he had offered her was just normal human food.

“You might need to thank Daniel for that. Now, eat.”

The simple sight of the roasted potatoes and the synthetic sausages was mouthwatering. Alex hadn’t realized before how famished she actually was when she started to poke the food with her fork.

“So, what was the agreement?” Mordin enquired after a little while of silent eating.

“What?” she replied with her mouth unceremoniously full.

“With Aria. What will you do in return?”

She swallowed. Thinking about it, the human couldn’t recall what the specifics of their conversation were. “I don’t know… I told her I was the best assassin she would find… And that I would make her win Omega...” It had been a desperate and cocky argument and Alex became fully aware of it while smashing one of the baby carrots in her plate. 

Mordin stared at her with what seemed to be a smirk. “Are you, really? Bold statement... Full of pride...”

Her amber gaze met his, drawing the saddest smile on her lips. “The first part is true, though. I’m terribly good at ending other people’s lives…” 

His expression was somehow pitiful when he spoke again, although his voice was encouraging. “You have been trained by the N7 and killed for the Alliance before. I suppose it doesn’t make any difference what scumbag you wipe off the map. No one is innocent in Omega, so don’t show regrets.”

“Not even you?” the question slid out her mouth before Alex was even able to think of it. A bit remorseful, she looked up from her tray to meet his stare; massive black eyes piercing hers.

“Not even me, Alexandra. Not even me... But I’m in peace with my past after helping you. And with Aria. Just a word of advice: doesn’t matter how bad it gets. It will pass. Sooner or later, it will.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like a Swiss watch. I love Mordin Solus. But don't worry: he'll be back soon.  
> I have corrected some mistakes and added some more lines here.  
> Daniel Abrams, btw. The same one you save from the batarians on ME2, just in case his name rang a bell ^^  
> Thank you all for reading and for your patience :)


	3. Garrus

His slow-paced breath was the only sound audible on the quietness of the night: a quite unusual silence for the setting. Then, the soft rustle of his armour when his finger slid slowly over the trigger, following the target through the telescopic sight. 

The movements of his arm muscles were controlled and even subtle: his steady pulse had always been his strength, apart from his remarkable hand-to-hand combat skills. 

All the variables had been considered already: no wind, barometric pressure calculated, target speed movement, temperature… So the only thing left was to follow the usual and well-known steps: breath in, aim, shoot, breath out. 

The first guy he was targeting never stood a chance and died not knowing what was going on. The second one didn’t have enough time to think of how to escape before the second bullet had already been shot, going straight through his helmet. Humans, according to their features and considering the massive puddle of scarlet blood that grew under them once on the ground. 

Two more mercs came through the security door after the quiet dropping of dead bodies, looking bewildered about the attack. With strict discipline, and following the same exact routine than an instant before, he also took them both down. 

Easy as cake.

Not in vain he was the best sniper in that rat nest called Omega.

The turian held his position for two minutes, waiting for any other threat: a very military habit, typical of the education his species grew up into. But everything remained quiet, so he decided to inform the others, voice deep and full of harmonics. “Entrance’s clear. Team 1, move forward. I’ve got you covered.”

Movement emerged from his right and, through his telescopic sight, he was able to see how Sidonis and Sensat, the salarian expert in explosives, entered the building with stealthiness and unsheathed pistols, escorted by Butler and Weaver, the human mercs.

The turian remained in position with his knee on the ground, rifle resting on the railing and his aim still on the door of the building at his front, the Blue Suns warehouse/headquarters. “ _ Stupid bastards… Great mistake not having cameras around here… _ “ he thought, actually quite pleased of the naivety of the merc group they were about to sabotage down to his roots. 

“Clear in the ground level,” Lantar Sidonis whispered on the line. 

But, right after uttering the sentence, a silenced gunshot ricocheted in the turian’s auditory canal from the comm. “Ey, guys, everything alright?” he asked, a hint of nervousness in his subvocals. Obviously, they were expecting some sort of resistance inside, nothing that his people wouldn’t be able to handle. However, keeping things quiet was paramount for the success of the mission.

“Affirmative, Archangel,” one of the humans said. “Just some mercs guarding the goods. Sensat has just dropped the package. We’ll be out in two.”

Relief grew in his guts: they were so close… Just one last push.

“Good. Erash, get ready to cover them. As soon as they are out, you follow.”

“Received, boss,” the female turian said from the street on his right. The deserter female was the backup support, waiting for the strike team to get in and out the headquarters, covering the adjacent alleys. 

Archangel blinked hard a couple of times, eyes itchy because of the lack of sleep and the demanding focus, and cracked his neck, relieving some of the accumulated tension. He went back to look at his sight after a deep inhale. 

Camouflaged as a ‘private security organization’ the leader of the Blue Sun’s in Omega City, Tarak, had gained control of the Gozu district in no time using dirty tricks, murders and bribes to the corrupt police force in the dung-heap that the city was. Now everything was under Aria’s control, they were still the indisputable leaders of the mech smuggling in the area, as well as most of the gun trafficking and some red sand scheming. But, as a matter of fact, they were the less harmful mercs of all of them. Everyone in Omega knew that, if you wanted a mech or a pistol in Omega, Tarak was your man.

If he had to be honest, Archangel only chose that gang because they looked like the easiest one to take down for a ‘beginner’ group like them: a nice and easy strike in the middle of the night, but a powerful warning to any of the other groups that operated in the city:  _ Ey, I am Archangel. And I will make your life hell. _

“Opening the door guys, don’t shoot,” Sensat told both turians, and the squad came out of the ground floor of the building. He kept aiming at the door while his colleagues disappeared into the dark streets, blending with the shadows. 

Thirty exact seconds later, he asked for their whereabouts. “Meeting point already, Archangel.” 

“Ok, I’ll stay covering the door, just in case. Wait two minutes and blow it up,” he said with a low, deep and terrifying rumble. 

“Are we really sure of this, boss? Wouldn’t it be too much? We’re gonna make like a ton of enemies today...” Butler opined. And he was right: every other merc gang would be pissed off. And especially, Aria. 

“Nothing that we cannot handle,” the turian hoped. “This will mean a heavy blow among their ranks and they’ll need some time to rebuild and regroup.”

“And what about the explosives? Sensat, for the spirits’ sake, tell me everything will be alright,” Erash pleaded.

“It will. Small explosion, not hard enough to damage the street but powerful enough to knock the pillars of the building down. It will collapse towards the empty space on the right side. Calculations had been made,” the salarian expert explained as fast as all the salarians spoke. The guy was the best in his field, otherwise, he wouldn’t let him do something that reckless, putting innocent lives at risk.

That was a huge strike: the first real one they were able to perform. And Archangel was excited about the righteous feeling: at last, he was acting; doing good things and achieving evident results, and he felt proud of himself and his squad. 

But pride was a double-edged sword sometimes. 

“One minute from now,” Weaver said, looking at his omnitool.

“Waiting for the  _ boom _ , then,” Sensat joked while extracting the small detonator from a bag. “Who’s doing the honours? Sidonis, perhaps?” the salarian offered.

Sidonis shrugged his shoulders but accepted the small gadget, looking at his omnitool to check the remaining time with nervousness.

Thirty seconds.

The turian’s hands were slightly shaky while holding the detonator. Once the time was due, he counted the seconds down from ten and pressed the button with crescent expectancy. 

A muffled  _ boom _ , definitely quieter than any of them had expected, brought a subtle murmur after a few seconds. A murmur that became a deafening rumbling when the building on the other side of the street began to crumble and collapsed onto itself, tilting and finally falling sideways as the salarian had calculated. Screams were heard from the inside and from the adjoining buildings that stood immutable in spite of the next door’s demolition. 

Obviously, there were no collateral damage or victims, as Archangel had ordered and the salarian had confirmed: no civilians to be harmed, as they were fighting that war for them. Therefore, they all were very respectful with that rule. 

After a few seconds of incredulity about what they had just accomplished, smiles began to surface: they had taken down the headquarters of one of the three bands that ruled in Omega City under Aria’s iron fist. And it felt amazing. Both humans burst into laughter and high-fived, and Erash hugged Sensat with a quiet but happy squeak. 

“Guys, we should be going. We don’t want to be here when the police arrive...” Sidonis mentioned. 

“Oh, you, buzzkill. Let me gloat on this for a little while!” Erash complained. She was one of the last adding to the team and she was too young but experienced in fighting. However, she struggled with the concept of real risk sometimes. 

“Dispersion now, team. 1800 at the HQ,” Archangel ordered, and they all followed the command: they had stayed for too long around their target. It was time to flee.

“Right, let’s go,” Sidonis ended, turning around and departing using one of the parallel streets. They all hid their weapons and imitated him, marching in different ways as if nothing had happened and as if it had nothing to do with them. 

Archangel only got down from the roof when everyone in his team had fled away and were all confirmedly safe. He used the fire escape ladder and made his way away, mandibles fluttering in a turian grin under his helmet: that meant a victory. And a huge one. After just a year, he had been able to tackle down the Blue Suns, destroying his HQ and, hopefully, killing his leader. With his squad’s help, there was nothing he could not accomplish. 

He would go for Jaroth and Garm next. 

And then, Aria T’Loak would be defeated, too. 

***

The cup of levo coffee steamed on the table, next to two distinct dextro turian teas. They had been the first ones arriving at the HQ before the agreed time, 1730, and waited for the others to appear, comfortably sitting on one of the sofas and having a little chat after their success. A couple of datapads with the main newspapers rested on the table, all of them showing their ‘conveniently called’ terror attack on the first page.

But it didn’t matter that the bribed media called them terrorists: the people in Omega knew the truth about the vigilante group and their work, and that was motivation enough to carry on. 

“I’m sure you know his real name… How did you meet?” Erash asked Sidonis and Vortash, the members of the group that had been for longer working together with Archangel while grabbing her cup of tea. 

The batarian and the turian grinned and looked at each other, like trying to figure out how much they did really know about the leader of their group. Vortash was who spoke first, apologetic. “Don’t look at me: when I met Archangel he was already taking people down with this guy.” He ducked his head, pointing at Sidonis. “And for some months already, as they told me. I just joined in because a friend of mine, some sort of witch doctor, told me someone was looking for a tech expert. And, regarding his name… I cannot tell because I truly have no clue...”

Erash huffed with disappointment and looked at Sidonis then, who flapped his mandibles in a sort of ironic scoff, recalling the actual circumstances when they met. “He saved me. That bloody turian bastard saved my ass in the AfterLife a while ago...” 

“And how…” she interrupted. 

“Don’t be impatient, for the spirits’ sake…” the turian told her off with mockery, and both Erash and Vortash chuckled. It was amazing how the small group of ten vigilantes had clicked together flawlessly: not that they knew much about each other, as confidentiality was paramount for safety reasons, but they got perfectly along, like a secret small sort of family. 

“Well, as I was telling you… some Blood Pack krogans were beating the hell out of me in the lower level of the AfterLife when he stepped in to help me. I didn’t know him at all as I had never seen him in my whole life, but even without knowing me, he saved me and we both kicked the asses of the mercs. I suppose that the least I could do was to invite him to the most expensive turian brandy I could find in that pisshole… We began to talk, trying to solve the world after a couple of brandies, and one thing led to the other... I learnt that he worked for the C-Sec in the Citadel for a very long time and was even proposed to become a Spectre, but he gave it all up. And he ended up in Omega somehow. But I don’t know how, before you ask me…” 

Erash desisted in her interrogation attempts although Sidonis hadn’t told the exact truth. He was aware that the turian ex-officer was quite fed up with the C-Sec bureaucracy and wanted to make his actions meaningful, being able to make a real difference in people’s lives, making the world a safer place as he had confessed himself. Quite idealistic, to be honest, but knowing how hot-blooded and stubborn that damn turian was... 

They both met again and began with the stupidity of patrolling the streets in pursuit of mercs that were getting rowdy in the residential areas. After a few successful strikes, the residents were extremely happy that someone was, at last, doing something against the crime in the city and named the vigilante Archangel because of his good deeds. And, after a few months, the group of two accepted the batarian tech expert, Vortash. And then, three human mercs, Monteague, Weaver and Butler. Then, two turians and a krogan: Melenis, Ripper and Grundan Krul, respectively: an odd mixture of mercs and C-Sec ex-agents. The asari Mierin and the salarian Sensat came both together. The last squad member to join in had been Erash. 

And, as well as his vigilante group grew, so did the importance of their targets.

Some months ago, when the conversation popped up over some drinks, Archangel fumbled something about the death of a  _ good friend _ and some  _ woman trouble _ as the real reasons to escape from the Citadel, but the turian rushed to change the topic swiftly. However, Sidonis thought that both issues were rooted down in his carapace deeper than he let them see. During the time they had worked together, none of his known flings had become anything else than that: a mere night stand. Archangel also had that thing with female humans that Sidonis never really understood and which he would actually call a kink: if the human was red-haired… 

“C’mon Lantar, tell me his name. You must know it. You are his friend!” she insisted with a witty tone, slapping his shoulder playfully.

The turian thrummed undertones of secrecy on his subvocals, creating expectancy when he leaned over her to whisper close to her fringe, his mandibles bushing her cheek. “And I do… But I won’t tell you… At his request,” he joked, leaning back down on the sofa with a smug smile. 

Erash's eyes narrowed as she pouted - the turian equivalent, her mandibles flapping in sly fake disappointment. The female turian was young and appealing. Definitely younger than he was, but Sidonis found her highly desirable in spite of her inexperience. “ _ Perhaps I should be more obvious with my subvocals next time… And with my flirting… Invite her out one day... _ ” 

He was aware of how she actually venerated Archangel but Garrus would never see anything in her but a one-night fuck: an easy way to blow off some steam. And Sidonis really liked her… He would offer her more than a lay. “ _Oh,_ _Garrus… What an opportunity you’re missing, mate,_ ” Sidonis thought while observing the female turian chatting to Vortash, her hands resting on the perfect curve of her waist. 

_ Garrus. _

That was his friend’s name.


	4. a terrible idea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Shadow came into the AfterLife using the service door as always, fully armoured and with the darkened helmet on. The krogan guard had strict instructions to let her in every time she turned up, and so he did. Not that she was a regular, but everyone there knew she worked for Aria T’Loak. And everyone there knew she was deadly as hell. He rushed to type the code for the door on his omnitool, opening it for her, for sure feeling the shiver of fear alongside the hive of his armoured back. 

The rumours said she was a powerful asari, but no one truly knew it for sure. At least her armour was: one of those new and expensive models specially designed for biotic vanguards. It camouflaged her scent and her voice frequency, making her completely anonymous to everyone, and stuck to her body like a second skin, as black as the void. 

That was why everyone called her the Shadow. 

She dove into the heat of the electronic music hiding in the dark, making her way to the VIP area, dodging the crowd around. She was there for work and nothing else. Her presence, and obviously her attire, gathered some curious looks and comments as she was recognized. Her fully armoured body was contrasted hugely with the excessive dressing up, sequins, feathers and shiny fabrics of the partygoers. But everyone mainly ignored her and she reciprocated.

They all feared her. 

A duck of her head once on the stairs that gave access to the private area was enough to grant her access: the bulky krogan that was the asari’s private bouncer moved away from her way and she climbed up the stairs, her heart pounding in her chest.

Because if there was anyone in Omega that was more feared than the Shadow, it was Aria T’Loak. 

And there she was, waiting for her, sitting on her majestic leather sofa, legs crossed, a champagne glass in her hand and a wolfish smirk on her lips. Foretelling her arrival, there was another flute glass on the table.

The Shadow stayed next to the door, waiting for the asari's first reaction: in that pool of crap that Omega was, it was always better to wait for her to make the first move and have all the escape routes open, just in case.

And be always ready to unholster your gun. 

Aria sat up and stretched her body lazily after some quiet seconds that both females used to study each other. Finally, the asari typed some commands on her omnitool. The door slid shut and the window panes turned black. She also deactivated the CCTV before leaning back, still with the same smug smirk on her face.

Just then, Alex unclasped the helmet and took it off, leaving it on one of the seats, and re-tied her ponytail. Once she finished, the human helped herself some champagne and sat across her on the opposite sofa, intentionally away from the asari’s grasp. 

“You are not gonna do it, are you?”

Alex scrunched her nose and gave a long sip of her drink before answering another stupid request about her hair. “I cut it already. Dyeing it has always been out of the plate...”

Aria narrowed her eyes, her tone was frozen cold. “Nearly two years here and always the same old shit… It has grown again and I don’t like people ignoring my orders, Alexandra.”

The asari stood up and, with a sensual swing of her hips, walked towards Alex, who tensed her body in response. She raised a hand up slowly and pulled at the hairband that kept the human’s orange locks in place, letting her hair fall over her features. Then, the asari smothered them with her gloved hand, caressing her scalp softly. Alex shuddered noticeably under her touch, a mixture of pleasure and danger, and Aria smirked wolfishly once again. “I just let you get your ways because you know I like it.” Suddenly and violently, the asari fisted a handful of her hair and jerked the human’s head back. Alex emitted a pained whine while Aria hoovered over her features slowly with that same smug smile, that close to her face that the human could feel her warm breath on her skin. 

She looked at her as a predator deciding if it was time to devour her prey. 

The ruler of Omega needed to be always in control of every situation and, at first, that had turned Alex on as hell. Now, that behaviour only turned on all the alarms. They both had fucked sporadically over the last two years, mostly when Aria wanted to. And Alex could never bring herself to say no. But, after the last events, her survival instinct was winning the battle to her arousal. Alex had no qualms in admitting that Aria T’Loak was mad, lustful - both for sex and power -l and she was better being on her friend’s side rather than on her foe’s. 

At that point, Alex only wanted to survive.

Perhaps the asari realized she was not having the desired effect on her. Or perhaps she was only teasing. Or it could also be that she was about to kill her. With a gesture of disdain and a complete mood swing, she let her hair go and walked away, to her relief. “Have you seen the news?” Aria asked, refilling her glass of champagne and sitting on the sofa across the room as if nothing had happened at all.

The Shadow breathed again, tension easing from her body at the crescent distance in between them. Alex was not surprised that the asari had called her into her office about that issue. It took some seconds for her to answer, though, trying that her voice sounded as composed as it should. “Yes, I have.”

“And?” The asari’s tone was threatening. 

“It looks quite Blood Pack style. And I know they had their quarrels…” she adventured with a studied even tone. She had memorized that excuse already that same afternoon. She only had to remain calm and sound. Secure.

Aria stood up, cutting her speech short and screaming at her, her expression a mask of madness. “They fucking blew up the building! Why the fuck would they do that? At the end of the day, they all work for me!” Then, she walked around the room like a caged rabid animal and Alex did her best to stay calm on a sofa that had grown more and more uncomfortable as the seconds went by. 

“They would not do that to me… They know I’d kill them if any of them took that step. Tarak Charkja is in hospital and I have a black hole in the Gozu district that is going to lead into a gang war that doesn’t benefit none of us...” Aria decided in the end. “This has been an outside job. Who did it...?” the asari mumbled, giving Alex a harsh and maniac stare.

Alex drank the champagne in her glass, looking at the asari in the eye. She automatically became very aware of all her movements and gestures, even more when Aria walked towards the table with a display of exaggerated sensuality. The asari sat next to her, hip to hip, and circled her waist with her arm. “Alexandra… This is your job. You are the one who has to move in the shadows, finding the menaces, eliminating them. How didn’t you see this coming?”

The sweet poison of her tone made Alex’s danger alarms peak dangerously. The adrenaline flooded her veins, her biotics ready to protect her, just in case. The Shadow was ready for everything every time she came into the wolf’s den. Killing Aria when being alone in her secure place wouldn’t be a problem: it would be quite easy, indeed. But the human knew she would never make it out of Omega alive. Never. Eliminating her was not an option at all.

On the other hand, keeping her content was.

“My mission is to protect you and to eliminate the individuals you tell me that might interfere with your job… I don’t look after the gangs. Besides, no one saw this coming.”

Aria emitted an acknowledgement  _ hum _ . Her thumb roamed the side of the human’s face, sliding from her temple to her cheek and caressing her plump lower lip. “You would never do that, right? Keeping important information to yourself…?” she whispered, threatening and lewd. 

The heart thumped fast in Alex’s chest but, before she could form any excuses to defend the direct blow to her integrity, the asari had pinned her wrists to the sofa with her biotics and had fisted her hair again roughly, pulling it back and exposing her pale neck. She expected that the asari would bite it off but, instead, Aria downed a path of nips and wet kisses on it. 

Alex moaned at her doing, the rush danger mixing up with her own desire pooling between her legs. It would be less suspicious if she let her do whatever she intended to. “Aria, I told you… I had no idea… I didn’t hear anything…”

A purple gloved hand parted her knees and slid up over the inner part of her thighs deliberately slowly towards the apex of her legs. White heat started to rush in her veins. 

“You would never betray me, would you?”

Alex whimpered when Aria ran her hand over her sex with the right pressure applied on the right spots, right enough to make her forget what she was actually doing in that room. Her breath mingled with Alex’s before the human darted forwards and kissed her deeply: soft full lips and silky tongue. But it tasted like fear and ashes.

No one had ever said no to Aria and she wouldn’t be the first one trying. This was not their first time. They had fucked before. That was it: just a fuck. She had to. Otherwise, it would be suspicious. And that was the last thing she wanted now.

Aria unzipped the Shadow’s armour with her free hand and lowered her attention towards her neck and beyond, and Alex could do nothing to stop her. The asari cupped her breast over the black bra and gave it a gentle squeeze before rolling her nipple with her fingers roughly, making her sigh. Aria went back to kiss her, passionately toying with her tongue, Alex’s breath growing harsh at her attentions. 

Until the asari bit her lower lip in a very rough way, making Alex jerk her head back with a surprised gasp. 

Aria smirked and pulled back, retrieving her hands from the human’s body and undoing the binding. “I can fuck whoever I want whenever I want, Alexandra. You are not special for this. I have no better use to give you if you don’t do your fucking job. Find the people who blew up the Blue Suns. I want their heads on a spike. Or it will be yours.”

Alex could feel her blood dampening her lip and her inconveniently wet underpants when Aria stood up and walked away from her. She swallowed hard, trying to normalize her breath, impossible to dissipate her arousal. Her crotch throbbed painfully with the missing touch as well as her lip did with the pain of her bite. 

“I would have liked to eat you out and make you scream my name, but I don’t think I’m in a good mood today. Remember my words, Alexandra. Don’t fuck with me.” 

Once that was said, Aria T’Loak left the room, leaving a shaky, scared and involuntarily turned on human on her sofa, having made a mess out of her.

***

The first thing she did when she got home was taking her helmet off and throwing it against the wall in a wave of rage. On her way to the bathroom, her armour followed the same furious path, as well as her still damp underwear. Alex got herself into the shower and scrubbed her skin thoroughly, trying to wash her embarrassment and her guilt. Their sporadic encounters had been fun at first. And even necessary: a careless and decadent enjoyment. Alex was only being grateful to the asari because she had saved her life. Besides, it was not that she didn’t enjoy herself, too. There had never been feelings muddying things, but just plain sex born on her own desperation.

But she didn’t want that, anymore.

Things changed some months ago when the human finally realized that Aria had no rival that could upstage her. The asari had become far too powerful and untouchable: a greedy tyrant. Even madder and more lustful than she usually was, puppeteering with all the gangs according to her will. And Alex had helped her reach that throne. She contributed to creating that monster and it was her responsibility to keep it under control. That was why guilty, reckless and stupid Alex had decided to, at least, prune some of the most rotten branches that grew under Aria’s commandment, delimiting her power somehow. Alex had killed five of her own colleagues already: cold blood targeted murders. But the world was a better place without those people, and she didn’t have in mind to stop the killing spree anytime soon. However, she was afraid that, sooner or later, those acts of rebellion would put her really close to the spotlight as it had just happened.

Of course she had heard the rumours about the Blue Suns… There was a new gang fighting against the bad guys, led by a trained vigilante: Archangel. He was targeting the gangs, Blue Suns, Blood Pack and Eclipse, wiping off the map some of the most disgusting individuals. People that Aria didn’t want dead at all. 

Alex didn’t know who he was and didn’t help him in any way, but she didn’t interfere with his plans, either, as he was kind of doing the same job that she did. 

And regarding the Blue Suns HQ… she just let it happen. 

Aria had hit bull’s eye during the conversation: Alex knew who was behind the attacks and she did nothing to stop him. And Aria would skin her alive if she ever found out. And would put a price on his vigilante's head, too. Perhaps, a word exchange with that Archangel would be appropriate to warn him and to cover her own back, now Aria was starting to smell a rat. At the end of the day - and at the end of her contract - apart from cleaning the mess that she had made after herself, the only thing she wanted was to make it alive. 

“Six months left… Six months and I’ll be free…” She repeated the mantra while wrapping the towel around her body.

The picture the mirror offered back to her was familiar, yet unknown. She had to cut her hair but it had obviously regrown after two years and she had gone away with dying it. A shoulder-length cobalt blue wig rested on a fake head in her bedroom: her new  _ official _ identity. A wig she had to wear every time she went outside. Her tattoos had been erased from her skin, being now a white and spotted canvas once again. The only thing she was most familiar with was the sempiternal nasty scar on her right thigh: the memory of her survival. 

Alex sat tiredly on the sofa and connected the encrypting device for her omnitool. It was a present from Mordin, purchased to one of his patients: a batarian expert in technology. Belonging to Aria, the omnitool was tapped for sure: her emails, phone calls, messages… probably the asari was even aware of her porn preferences. But that gadget gave her enough time to make an anonymous videocall from time to time and some private internet search, encoding the signal and making it invisible for anyone else. 

It only rang twice before the screen showed the salarian doctor on the other end of the line. 

“Alexandra! What a surprise! Is everything good? Nothing to fix today?”

The human chuckled. “Not today, sadly… I’m still in one piece, strangely, but I don’t know for how long....”

“Mmmhh… This is not a courtesy call, is it? Are you alright?”

She was not: She was scared. But she had a plan to follow up to the last consequences. “I think she knows…”

There was a mortal silence at both ends of the line.

“Well, you are still alive. That means she doesn’t. Extra caution will be needed from now on. There’s no room for mistakes.”

“I know… I know…” Alex sank back on the sofa. “I’m thinking of finding this guy… Pact a truce. Even working together, perhaps.”

“That’s a terrible idea, Alexandra. You are a war dog from his enemy. He’ll kill you without hesitation. And she’ll kill you if she finds out.” 

Alex ran a hand over her tired closed eyes. 

“Yes… Or perhaps no… I’ll never know if I don’t try, I suppose...”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! Thanks for the kudos and for reading! Next update will come a bit earlier than expected, perhaps Wednesday or Thursday, we'll see... ^^


	5. oh! Hello!

By one of those strange arrangements, he was not deployed as the sniper that night: Melenis had the outdoors and part of the side private alley - the smoking area - covered from the roof with his rifle while Sidonis, Vortash, Erash and himself interacted with the bouncer, paying a ridiculous amount of money to get into the club. 

As all of them expected, none of their weapons were allowed in, so they were cautiously kept in the wardrobe at the entrance. The only thing in their pockets after the search? A batarian and a turian fabric hood and face mask that would guarantee their anonymity once the action began. Archangel had been carefully studying the positions of the cameras in order to find the blind spots of the CCTV system inside the club, but there was no way they could avoid to be seen in the outside area.

“All clear guys. Target next to the bar: Salarian with red armour. He’s holding what looks like a daiquiri… Two… no, three bodyguards around. All turians in grey.” 

“Spirits, Vortash, knowing what a daiquiri is is oddly specific coming from you... Do you fancy girl’s drinks now?” Sidonis asked with wittiness. 

“You only say that because you haven’t tried them before… They are good. Very. Good,” the batarian retorted, defensive.

“I’ve got eyes on the target, too,” Erash pointed out, walking a few steps closer towards the guy they were looking to eliminate.

“Move back with the group. Now,” Archangel ordered with an annoyed low rumble, ducking his head up to signal the camera that had gone unnoticed to her. Erash obediently stepped back. 

The salarian they were targeting was real scum: one of the most dangerous slavers in the galaxy. And, also, the owner of the club. He trafficked with children and teenagers from different species, orphans mostly, bringing them to Omega and selling them in auctions to any kind of pervert that could afford to pay for them. Then, he used that club to wash the money. Obviously, a cut of the profit was sent to Aria.

This was a moral strike, deep and necessary. But not the easiest one for sure. 

The idea was to hang out until the salarian wanted to go for a fag in the back alley and end him. They carried no weapons, having planned to ‘borrow’ one from any of the bodyguards as soon as they could. Vortash and Archangel were the best on hand to hand combat anyway - they would be the ones performing the actual action - while Sidonis and Erash would be the backup team, covering the inside of the club. If everything went according to the plan, no witnesses and minimal exposure to the CCTV, as the video was recorded but not checked real-time.

“Well... chill out, guys. Let’s go to the table and order some drinks,” Sidonis told them while taking positions on the right of one of the pole-dancing platforms where asari and male and female humans danced without clothes. As Archangel had checked, it was the only blind spot within the tables where the cameras wouldn’t reach them at all. They ordered some cocktails and brandies to the curvy and sexy asari waitress and Archangel scanned the place briefly, locating the exits and possible threads while waiting for the drinks.

And, as an involuntary habit, he lingered his eyes over the female humans in the club with the same-than-always tight feeling in his chest. Only one woman had red hair, but its colour looked quite unnatural. _“Alex should be around 27… That woman looks older than she, anyway.”_ He sighed, having a sip of his turian brandy. The word _stupid_ shot in his mind, flashy and painfully loud. “ _You have to stop doing this to yourself, mate…_ ” he told himself off, fed up at his own stubbornness and pointless insistence. 

Some years ago, right after she disappeared, Garrus was able to access some Alliance secret intel thanks to his position on the C-Sec. That’s how he discovered that Alex had boarded for Omega the day after the attack. Not that it had determined his decision to end up there, as Omega was the perfect place to clear up some criminals, but he would lie saying it didn’t influence his choice just a bit. Anyway, it had been two years without any news and without knowing anything about her and he couldn’t understand why he was still looking for her everywhere he went... Perhaps because she vanished without any trace and he had always bloated on how good he was at finding people? Or because she was his friend? Or because he saved her many years ago and his protective instinct refused to let her go? But after what happened in between them, the prospect of something more than friendship... It had been unexpected and too good, far more than he had expected. And the memory of her and her warmth still throbbed painfully from time to time. “ _Damn the fucking hour I decided to follow Shepard…_ ”

Shepard... that was the other thing that had dented his determination: Shepard was dead. The whole Normandy had exploded into space and the Alliance hadn’t even been able to recover her body… Their relationship was not romantic at all, but based on admiration: she was a strong, charismatic and disciplined leader and any turian would have followed her to death.

 _He_ would have followed her to death.

Curiously, she died first.

Garrus would survive. He always did. But the way both issues had rotten under his carapace was not healthy at all... Hopefully, nothing that another sip of brandy and murdering another target wouldn’t help to blunt.

“Ey, Archangel, come back to Omega!” Sidonis claimed on his right, tapping at his shoulder. Garrus blinked a couple of times, suddenly recalling he was still staring at the human and that he was not alone. 

“Sorry.” He cleared his throat uncomfortably a couple of times. “I was just scanning the area.”

“If you say so...“ Erash said with a wry smile before resuming his chat with Lantar. But her harmonics... “ _Spirits… they are so obvious…_ ” Garrus thought as it seemed that something more than companionship had begun to grow in between them. And he was not talking about a bit of stress relief, but something deeper. He was happy for them but he wondered how their relationship would clash with their work: it was never a good idea to mix pleasure and business. 

The asari on their platform was hanging upside down from the pole and Vortash stared at her with his four eyes, utterly captivated and nearly drooling over his shirt when Archangel spoke again, making them all focus back on the mission. “Guys, the target is moving towards the side door.”

That was the opportunity they had been looking for.

Sidonis and Erash nodded at their leader and stood up. They walked at some distance, following the guy and holding hands. The salarian and two of his bodyguards crossed the door, leaving the other one inside, watching over the club. Both turians stopped next to him and started to make out shamelessly against the wall: in a place like that one, that behaviour wouldn’t be suspicious at all. 

Archangel and Vortash shared a surprised but contained look at their intensity before standing up and walking unsteadily towards the door that led to the back alley pretending they were all drunk, taking care of making a huge fuss on their way there. Archangel reached to pull the handle to get outside but the bodyguard stopped him on his talons. “It’s closed now. Come back in a few minutes,” the turian dryly ordered, pushing them back.

A second after, Sidonis, who had stealthily sneaked behind the bodyguard, circled his neck with his arm on a chokehold, cutting his breath until he fell limp. Both Garrus and Vortash grabbed the turian before he dropped on the floor, sitting him with a half-empty glass on his hand: he would go for another really plastered drunkard in the club. 

Neat, coordinated and tidy.

Sidonis checked for his holster under the tunic. “Jackpot!”. He handed the Carniflex out to the batarian, who checked the bullets left and cocked the gun with a tiny metallic noise. “Second act: we are going out. See you in a few minutes.” Vortash and Archangel put their hoods and masks on discreetly and opened the door. The cold and dark of the perpetual night cycle welcomed them into the smoking area.

But they didn't get far before they froze on their steps.

“What the f…?” the batarian began, bewildered, weapon still held tightly in his hand. However, he couldn’t finish the sentence, as they both had to throw themselves onto the ground to dodge the biotic shockwave that came towards them with unusual strength. It threw one of the bodyguards against the wall with a loud crack of his broken carapace. 

Archangel stood up, suddenly baffled and really high in adrenaline - or its turian equivalent.

And pissed off. Really pissed off. 

An asari dressed in black armour stood some metres ahead, apparently oblivious at their presence. With a purple glimmer around herself, she had the other bodyguard suspended in the air by his neck, which ended up cracking loudly, sign that his backbone had been compromised. She let her prey go and the turian dropped dead with a loud thump, like an empty shell. The asari turned menacing towards the salarian on the ground, who was utterly terrified and covering himself with his hands as if that would make the best line of defence between him and his attacker. “Don’t kill me, I beg you!” he whimpered loudly, desperate. “I’ve got money, I’ll give you anything!”

“Boss… What should we do?” Vortash whispered on his left, as baffled as he was.

Archangel didn't answer but made a gesture with his hand, ordering the batarian to hold on. “ _She must be the famous Shadow..._ ” he thought. It was not the first time the turian had heard of her. She had killed in cold blood some of the most dangerous scum in Omega while working for Aria but, at the end of the day, she was no more than another criminal waiting to be eliminated. 

The asari moved gracefully in the alley while prowling her prey until she squatted in front of the slaver who cried, terrified. 

“She’s the Shadow… She works for Aria!” Vortash insisted with a hint of fear - or admiration - in his voice. 

“ _What’s going on out there, guys? Why is it taking so long?_ ” Sidonis asked on the comm.

“ _Ey, I don’t have a visual of that bit of the area. Are you all right?_ ” Melenis wanted to know from his sniper hideout.

“There’s a bit of trouble out here… It seems that the Shadow is doing the job for us,” Archangel explained briefly. “Maintain positions. Stay alert.” 

The Shadow clasped the salarian’s neck and stood up, lifting him over her head with her biotic’s help. “You're a piece of shit and you deserve worse than this…” she said with an electronically distorted voice that didn’t hide her rage, though. The trafficker began to kick his legs, trying to loosen her grip using his bare hands: an impossible task. 

She was asphyxiating him. Killing him slowly.

“We can take her down…!” Vortash insisted again, dragging Archangel out from his thoughts. 

The turian looked at his mate, seriously considering their chances: eliminating Aria’s hitwoman would be a terrific strike for the Omega’s ruler pride without any sort of doubt. Archangel didn't like improvisation but that was a chance he shouldn’t let escape. Weighing the pros and cons, they were four heavily trained soldiers with a weapon against one biotic asari that seemed unharmed. 

It might actually work…

“It would be a good kill to brag about...” the batarian carried on, self-assured.

Vortash was right. And, in the middle of an overconfident rush, Archangel shouted on the comm. “Team 2, come out here, now! The Shadow is here. We’re gonna take her down!” 

The Shadow let the dead salarian drop onto the ground and looked at them with something similar to disappointment, tilting her head at his words. “I don’t want a fight, Archangel. Stop this,” she warned with an authoritarian tone, for sure aware of his blue armour and his distinctive badge on the arm piece. 

The turian took her line as a threat, even if that was not her intention at all. The device mixing her harmonics and her voice features made her impossible to read, and her suit seemed to be one of the new asari confectioned ones, concealing her scent, too. But for sure she was not a better fighter than four of his men at the same time. He ran towards her and Vortash dropped on his knees to improve his aim. Then, he shot. Half of the thermal clip ricocheted on her biotic barrier, shattering it into pieces and she took cover behind a crate. 

In the meanwhile, Sidonis and Erash had gotten to the dark alley and were by the door, shocked about the scene: both turian bodyguards laid dead on awkward positions, as well as the salarian they were targeting. Archangel was running like crazy towards something ahead, dodging crates and other obstacles, and Vortash was still aiming with his knee on the ground. 

Right then, the Shadow raised again, lifting her hand towards them on the distance and throwing a biotic attack in their direction. Sidonis and Erash dodged it, the shockwave missing them by an inch but impacting heavily onto the wall with a loud crash, shattering something into pieces. 

“ _Great mistake to waste a chance like this, Shadow,_ ” Garrus thought once right in front of her, throwing a powerful kick to her knee that she avoided. But she couldn’t avoid his next jab, straight on her face, which made her stumble back a few steps. 

Vortash attacked her from behind, trying to clasp her neck in a chokehold. However, the Shadow grabbed the batarian’s arm before he was able to close the grip around her, and twisted it. Then, she turned around and kicked him hard on his stomach. and he bent down in pain with a whine. 

“Stop! I don’t want to hurt you,” she shouted, facing Archangel again. 

But the turian ignored her and threw a blow straight to her chest, full strength, making her fall on the ground. She used her position to kick him on his ankle, right over his spur, and Archangel growled and back off slightly, limping. 

That pissed him off even more. 

However, Sidonis and Erash were on their feet again, ready to back them up on the fight, and Vortash prowled again right behind her. 

With the four of them there, she stood no chance: it smelled like a victory already. 

Until the Shadow sneaked out from his grip, running away from him but towards Sidonis and Erash. Both turians were just stunned when the Shadow rose her arm and lifted them both off the ground, dropping them on the other side of the barbed-wire fence in a fluid movement. Stunned about her behaviour, Archangel looked at his helpless companions but could do nothing for them rather than stare at her powerful display and listen to their defenceless screams. 

That hadn’t been an attack: she was just taking them out of her way. “ _Why she’s not attacking us?_ ” he wondered. 

Once she got rid of them, the Shadow gazed at him, panting exhaustedly, and she turned to face Vortash, who was already next to her, ready for his next move. “Don’t make me do the same to you. I just want to speak to Archangel. And I’m tired!” she snapped at the batarian, raising a menacing purple-shining hand, but still gasping for air. 

Vortash stopped on his tracks, not knowing how to proceed. He glanced at Archangel, hesitant, waiting for instructions.

The three of them stilled, glaring at each other, breathing heavily. 

She was cornered. And tired.

“ _Guys! Archangel? Vortash? Are you alright?_ ” Sidonis asked weakly over the comm. 

Archangel's brain decided he would have time to reply once he had her blue skin as a carpet and his tentacled head on the wall of his dining room. “NOW!” he shouted, ignoring his squadmate’s concerned question. 

Vortash and he attacked her from opposite angles but, before he could realize, the Shadow had thrown the batarian back against the wall. However, she didn’t have enough power to push him away as well: her biotics were exhausted. And Archangel got ready for a tough fight: he was fully aware that she was not bad at hand to hand combat, either. 

Although his reach was better for sure. 

After a swift and highly offensive combination of blows and grips, the asari ended up pinned on the ground with both arms immobilised behind her and a turian knee on her back. She emitted a pained whimper when Archangel bent her arm further up and he couldn’t help but think of the first time he met Alex in the Citadel, in a completely different and yet so similar situation.

He cast the thought aside: he didn’t need that distraction right then.

But it was too late. 

The Shadow had perceived his hesitation. She jerked her arm out of his grip and pushed him back, kicking him heavily with both legs. Archangel ended up on his bottom but sprung up instantly with a menacing growl coming from the depths of his chest. Before the asari was able to stand up, Archangel had jumped on her, making her fall on her back under his weight. He snarled viciously at her, grasping her thin and easy breakable neck with his gloved talons and she lifted her purple-shining hand over her head with a feral roar, ready to attack. 

But she didn’t.

Her chest moved heavily up and down under him, breathing with difficulty when Archangel tightened his grip around her neck, looking at her hand in the corner of his eye. Now that he had her under his body she seemed… fragile. Slender and soft under him.

Weak.

To his surprise, the purple shine on her arm extinguished as she gasped for air, her hands lowering to grab his wrists and fight against the tight clasp of his talons. Then, she spoke with a hoarse voice. “I could have killed you, but I didn’t. Let me speak...” she pleaded. 

Even being one squeeze away from suffocating, the Shadow wanted to speak and that fed his curiosity. He sniffed the air around her discreetly but couldn’t catch any scent at all. The mask distorted her subvocals and he seriously considered unclasping her helmet and pulling it off: anonymity was vital for both of them as it was probably what was keeping them alive. The sight of her pathetic defenceless body under his made him finally take a decision. Archangel unclenched her throat and stood up, walking away to check up on Vortash. 

The Shadow sat upon the ground, coughing and touching her hurt neck. “Shit, you are the hell of a fighter, turian,” she said with that annoying metallic voice. 

The batarian was fine but just dazed, so she regained his whole attention. Archangel was not in the mood for a praising conversation, though. “What do you want?” 

“Just to warn you. I might have turned my eyes intentionally a couple of times with some of your targets, especially with the Blue Sun’s HQ… But your actions haven’t slipped unnoticed: Aria knows about you.”

“Wait a minute…. You knew about our plans and you said nothing? Why would you do that?” he asked with a crescent incredulity.

“I have my reasons… Look, Aria’s pissed and so are the gangs. They’ll come after you so you need to be extra cautious from now on. And… I’m also here to offer you my help. A truce.”

It took him some seconds to assimilate what she was offering and, at the end, he just laughed. “What? A truce? Why would I want your help? You work for them!”

The Shadow breathed out slowly. ”Sometimes you cannot really choose your fate and the only thing you can do is try to fix it once the harm’s done.”

“That’s not true: you always have a choice. Even if that implies you’d be killed to let others live.”

She chuckled bitterly. “No one in Omega is innocent, and if it comes to choose between my life or that slaver scumbag, my choice is quite clear. You and I are not that different, Archangel.” 

The turian couldn’t avoid hearing the mocking tone while pronouncing his name. “All except our motivations: I do it to make this pigsty place a better place. You do it to give more power to your master,” he affirmed with disgust.

The Shadow sighed and tilted her head on a gesture that he would identify with weariness. “It’s more complex than just that… I need to compensate for the chaos I’ve created but I have to carry on working for her. I’ve been killing my own people, Archangel. Right under her nose. I can give you names and dates to prove it: you’ll see their deaths are not accidental. And I’ve been allowing you to feast on the gangs’ ranks, too. Aria will destroy me if she gets to know... I want us to team up for this: I can provide you with trustworthy and up-to-date information about targets and gang activities, easing your investigation work. But I can’t get my hands dirty anymore: I need to divert her eyes from me.”

Archangel couldn’t wrap his mind about her bargain and his first instinct was to re-clasp her neck to end the job he had begun. However, a gut feeling told him to reconsider her offer. “You are proposing a collaboration with me while working for her… To do your dirty job, basically. Are you even listening to yourself? That’s the most unbelievable thing anyone could suggest. Why should I trust you?” 

“It’s a leap of faith, I suppose... I’ll have to earn your trust,” she answered, calmly. 

Archangel didn’t have to think much before giving an answer. “I’m not buying it,” he ended. “Now, leave before I kill you.”

The Shadow remained still on the same spot for a while before speaking again. “Fair enough,” she sighed, taking a small folded piece of yellow paper out of a hidden pocket on her armour. “But let me give this to you. There are three names on this list: all of them Eclipse’s drug dealers. Some of them are actually quite famous in the underworld, indeed.” She held her arm out to give him the list, but Archangel refused to take it, just staring at her with disdain. With a bitter scoff because of his stubborn attitude, she threw the piece of paper at him. When she spoke again, her voice sounded definitely annoyed. “You have the fucking targets, times and locations there. Do whatever you want with it. Shove it up to your turian bottom if that makes you happy,” the Shadow snapped before turning her back on him. 

The impulse of attacking her behind her back flashed for an instant, but he decided it wouldn’t be right. Instead, he looked at her limping steps while walking away, the rush of adrenaline finally fading. Suddenly, he realized how much he wanted to grab that yellow piece of paper from the ground and see what she had to offer. 

And so he did. Important names, in fact. 

What if she was actually speaking the truth...? 

“Ey, wait… Doesn’t Aria have CCTV here? She’ll see that you gave me this piece of paper and you didn’t kill me...” he asked in a loud voice, making her halt. 

But the turian stopped himself in the middle of his sentence, as a worrying thought had suddenly crossed his mind. “ _Crap, the CCTV cameras… Sidonis and Erash came outside without covering their faces…_ ” The realization clenched his stomach in a very painful way. “ _They will see them… Aria will know who they are..._ ”

The Shadow turned around, glimpsing at his thoughts. “I smashed the bloody cameras, Archangel: when they came outside, I noticed they were bare-faced. I didn’t miss the first attack on purpose: my aiming is not that bad,” she teased him, arrogant. “One of the cameras is next to you, on the floor. The other one shattered into pieces over there… I don’t think there’s much left of it.” 

He was sure that the Shadow would have paid to see his baffled face right then. 

“ _Archangel, do you copy? Are you alright? Sidonis and Erash are trying to get into the club again_ ,” Melenis explained on the comm, sounding worried. 

“What? No, is fine. We are both fine. We’ll be out in five. Don’t come in again,” he replied, still staring at the Shadow in mild shock. He spoke to her. “But you know who they are...”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m offering you my help. Why would I target your men? But you sent them both outside, bare-faced, to fight me knowing that the CCTV was on: you sent them straight to their deaths. This is not a strength show-off war game, Archangel, but a strategic one. Think carefully of all your steps, as a good tactician. Being that hot-blooded means you’ll make mistakes. And _we_ cannot afford that,” she scolded him as she would have done to a recruit.

Her breath was ragged when she finished the sentence and Archangel composed himself just enough to make Vortash stand up from the floor while downing her reproach, recoznizing she was right.

“Thank you… For the cameras, I mean… I’ll take a look at this,” he uttered quietly, showing her the yellow paper while holding the batarian’s arm over his shoulder to help him walk. 

The Shadow just nodded her head as a _goodbye_ gesture before disappearing into the night, climbing over the club’s wall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It was a matter of time! But, obviously, they don't know who the other is... Will they get to know? ^^  
> Thanks for the new kudos and the comments! They've been more than welcome, especially in this stupid week I had <3 <3 <3


	6. mistrust

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Odd day for an update but... Ey, I'm off work! Why not?

It had been two hours. Two fucking hours already and the Shadow was hungry. Two hours crouching on the emergency stairs of that bloody filthy building just to have a close eye over the group’s shuttle. The rumble that her belly made would have perfectly caught any pedestrian’s attention… If there were any pedestrians around in that area. 

Fortunately, the slums of Omega city were not a good place to go for a simple walk. 

Shadow was starving, but she couldn’t leave without her presence there being compromised. And she didn’t want anyone to know that she had been keeping a close eye on them. 

On him.

“Two out of three targets is a good average. We couldn’t complain even if this fails.” That was Weaver, who seemed to be the only female human in Archangel’s group. 

“I don’t think he turns up at this point,” Monteague mumbled with that characteristic french accent of his. She would have considered it sexy if they would have been back on Earth.

“C’mon… he’s been doing this same thing the last five Saturdays, always at the same time. Why is he late?”

From the emergency stairs, the Shadow had a fantastic visual of them and the whole length of the street. Weaver and Monteague were two squares away from the brothel, waiting inside the shuttle that would drive the rest of the team away from there once their target was eliminated. The named target? A batarian slaver that visited the place every Saturday at 1700 to _beta test_ the new _goods_ , as he liked to say. The named _goods_ were the most recent brothel acquisitions: girls and boys from different species on the limits of their legal age, some of them too lost or too drugged to be really aware of what they had gotten themselves into. 

The parking spot had been chosen wisely and purposely: there were no cameras around and it had a direct connection to the main motorway in Omega, creating the perfect escape route after their strike. 

“So, what do you think? About her? You think she wants to help?” Weaver asked, changing the topic.

“Nah… I think she’s luring us into a trap, to be honest. Things are getting too out of hand with her around, I hope it doesn’t end up exploding on our faces.”

The woman merc sighed. “You know I always try to be positive, but this smells rotten even for me. But Archangel is so convinced… I hope time proves me wrong.”

“Well, she’s proven herself helpful for now… Wait and see, Weaver… He seems to trust her so there’s little else we can do about it…”

Suddenly, they both became very still: someone was giving orders on the comms. “Understood. Good luck,” Weaver replied and Monteague started the shuttle quietly. 

It was impossible to hear any word of their conversation at that distance, but the Shadow suspected the slaver had finally turned up and the mission was on. If she had been in charge, she would have gone for a direct action: two men, a casual _bump into_ the guy once he got off the car and a quick shot on the head. Then, run as fast as they could. Easy and clean.

Knowing him as she did, he must have gone for the same plan.

All gestures on the humans gave away their tension: the stiffened shoulders, the quick glances back and forth, the constant checking on their comms… They were clearly winding up with the waiting, reaching its peak when Monteague spoke again. “We are clear. Waiting for you.”

The Shadow looked at her left: two turians in full armour had turned around the corner and were at the beginning of the street, no more than fifty steps away from their position. They were throwing concealed glances over their shoulders, especially after the police sirens and flashy blue lights blinked somewhere above, rushing towards the crime scene. 

The turians sped up their steps: Sidonis and Archangel, because of their armour colours.

Well, that seemed to be another successfully-finished mission and she had to admit that the damn sneaky turian was doing the hell of a good job.

She was about to pack it up and leave once they were halfway towards the shuttle, but a roaring shout froze her on the spot. “You, motherfuckers! Stop right there!”

Three krogans and a vorcha, yellow and black armour identifying them as Eclipse mercs, turned the corner, chasing after the turians. 

The Shadow counted three shotguns and a flamethrower. 

Their appearance had been unexpected and it seemed that Sidonis and Archangel felt the same way about it, exchanging some quick glances and whispers, probably knowing well enough that they were still too far from the shuttle to flee from that situation without getting involved into a fight. So, after a synchronized nod, the turians turned to face the newcomers while drawing out their pistols.

And Weaver came out of the car with an automatic rifle.

Everyone pulled the trigger at the same time.

_“Well, fuck....”_

There was sudden chaos and the rain of bullets and fire ricocheted everywhere around them. The turians jumped for cover behind the massive plant pots while firing and Weaver emptied a whole clip on the krogans, killing one of them. But the bullets didn’t stop the one with the kinetic armour while running towards Sidonis. The massive alien grabbed the turian from his hiding spot and shoved him over his head in a rush of rage. Sidonis ended up crushed against the building wall, dazed, and the only thing that stopped him to be shot on the head was Archangel kicking the krogan’s knee from behind and clasping him into a chokehold, diverting his attention from his squadmate. 

The vorcha with the flamethrower jumped into the scene and sent a random stream of fire towards Archangel that made him and the krogan take cover immediately. 

Weaver reloaded and aimed at the vorcha, but her rifle jammed. 

A second krogan appeared and grabbed Archangel’s arms behind his back, jerking him to a standing position roughly. The krogan in rage punched at his waist, making the turian bend in pain with a growl. Having left the vigilante breathless and hurt, the krogan retrieved his shotgun from the ground, aimed at the turian’s chest plate under his armour and reloaded.

The vigilante writhed at the sudden dangerous twist of the nearly-done mission and fought against the grip on his arms: a pointless effort.

Meanwhile, the vorcha approached an unconscious Sidonis, ready to roast him with the flamethrower.

Definitely, things didn’t look well for her _allies._

She would have to intervene.

The Shadow jumped down to the floor quietly and protected both turians with a strong biotic barrier.

The shot from the Claymore echoed on the empty street as a cannon bullet, catching for sure the corrupt police’s attention, and both, Archangel and the krogan startled when the bullet shattered the barrier into purple waves of energy instead of opening a gory hole in his chest. The Eclipse guy looked at his shotgun, baffled, and Archangel used his bewilderment to kick with both his legs the krogan’s chest, making him stumble back. His momentum made the other krogan lose balance, still trapping his arms, until the turian kicked him back aiming for the articulation on his knee: their weak point. The krogan whined when his leg bent on an impossible angle and fell onto the ground, unclasping Archangel at last. 

Weaver unjammed the rifle and finished the vorcha that was still trying to roast Sidonis. 

Free of the draining barrier, the Shadow engulfed the only remaining krogan on a static field. 

Everything went deadly quiet in the empty street until the first sirens resounded in the distance. 

The Shadow stood between the shuttle and the finished fight when Archangel turned on his heels to face her, his pistol aiming at her helmet. His chest raised up and down heavily, ready to kill her in the rush of adrenaline in front of her suspicious appearance.

That was the second time they saw each other in the flesh and she was aware that her entrance had been unexpected for sure: the Shadow couldn’t blame him for being extra-vigilant. She raised her hands on a pacifying gesture when Weaver also aimed at her.

The sirens that were howling in the distance were getting closer every second while they were paralyzed on the stand-by scene. But the time rushed forwards and they had to flee in spite of Archangel having a hard time deciding what to do with her. 

He finally holstered his weapon. “You are coming with us.”

She lowered her hands, letting out a breath she didn’t know she was holding. “I can’t leave loose ends. They’ve seen me,” she explained, pointing at the two krogans that were still alive. 

Archangel looked at the whining one coldly, pathetically knelt on the ground, and turned his Carniflex on him, shooting him straight on the head. The krogan fell dead and the annoying whimpering sound stopped. “The other one’s all yours,” he muttered while running towards Sidonis, pulling him up from the ground. 

The Shadow stood up in front of the paralyzed Eclipse merc. She faded the static field away but didn’t give the krogan any chance to move: her omni-blade sank on the soft armour material of his neck with a precise and swift movement, slitting it open. Yellow blood splattered her armour and the grey ground on slow motion while the krogan dropped onto his knees, grabbing his throat on a mute scream.

The sirens were getting closer.

“I don’t want to be a buzzkill, but we have to go. Now!” Monteague shouted from the shuttle and the scene recovered its normal speed. Weaver got into the shuttle and the Shadow rushed to help Archangel with Sidonis, who was still knocked out and was as heavy as any Alliance spaceship. 

Grunting and struggling under his weight, he dropped him on the back seat and the Shadow pushed him in with her biotics. She jumped into the middle seat before Archangel sat next to her and shut the door. “Go, go, go!” the turian rushed Monteague, looking behind them where the police lights were flashing. 

“For lord’s sake… Relax, _mon ami. Incroyable_!” the human replied, sinking his foot on the gas and shooting off, getting lost immediately in the fog and the traffic of Omega.

The silence was tense and heavy, listening for any signs of being pursued by the police while Monteague rushed through the packed aero-lanes, taking them as far as possible from the crime scene. Despite the dramatic ending scene, everything was relatively quiet now and the human merc finally slowed down, blending in with the other shuttles once they were sure no one was following them. 

It was right then when the Shadow started to grow well aware of her situation in that damn vehicle: she was trapped with Archangel and his men. Trapped in _Archangel’s_ shuttle. 

And everything screamed _danger_ in her mind.

Her whole body jolted when her leg touched his after a sharp turn. She looked right and saw the turian staring at her under his blue helmet. Quietly and cautiously, the Shadow took in how big, broad and menacing he actually was while sitting next to her, compared with her smaller human frame, and a rush of nervousness unleashed in her guts. Sidonis stirred on her left, again startling her, jumping up like a wound-up spring.

She was trapped and defenceless. That was bad...

Trying to keep a visual on both turians and deep breathing to calm her mismatched survival instinct down, the Shadow leaned back on the seat as much as she could, and pulled a protective barrier over herself. That was right before Sidonis finally awoke and growled menacingly when he saw her there, sitting right next to him. 

_“Well, shit…”_

If she had ever imagined being sandwiched in between two turians, it had never been this way and with this level of hostility for sure. Weaver and Montgueane were also giving her constant peeks and glares on the mirrors. 

She was screwed up...

“Where shall we go?” Monteague asked, his gestures stiff and tense, matching the general atmosphere in that fucking shuttle.

“HQ is not an option with her here…” Weaver retorted.

“Keep driving. Don’t stop,” Archangel ordered, his face turned on her, still staring. Scanning her. Analyzing her. 

The Shadow stared back at him, challenging but trying to breathe evenly despite her heart pounding in her chest that loud that she was sure the turian would be able to hear it.

They had her cornered and unarmed. They could shred her into pieces. It would be easy as cake. 

She mentally cursed herself for getting into that shuttle.

“What were you doing there?” Archangel asked at last.

“I came to check on you and to tell you how to contact me. But it seems to me that I also saved your turian asses.”

Sidonis growled behind her: a low threatening warning. And the breath caught in her throat. 

Perhaps she was not in the position to make smug jokes there. 

Archangel chuckled with disdain. 

That chuckle… All turians voices were different but very similar at the same time: the subvocals and the frequencies in their speech had unique characteristics that their species were able to identify with ease. It was not that easy for humans though, with their less trained hearing sense. His voice was similar to someone’s she once knew. But the thought slipped her mind.

In a peaceful gesture, she raised her hands before digging in her hidden pocket, taking out a new folded yellow piece of paper, very similar to the first one she gave him. “I also came to give you this… These are your login details and the intranet address of the blog we will be using to communicate further on. I will send you a name and locations using the private message system. Once you have studied the case, you will send me back the chosen location and the specifics for the mission. Any further communication will be face to face, establishing a meeting point using the same system.” The distortion on her voice was good enough to conceal her unease about that delicate situation, making her sound far more secure than she actually was. 

Archangel raised his hand slowly and grabbed the instructions with his talons, being very careful of not touching her at all. He unfolded the paper and took some interminable time to read it. “Good. But I don’t want you to interfere further in any of the missions unless I agree to it.”

The Shadow scoffed: she had just saved his ass and he was being cocky. “Fair enough. Less trouble for me, then,” she breathed out, cautiously. “But that’s not the only reason why I’m here today.”

“What the fuck are you doing here, then?” Sidonis barked on her left.

She inhaled sharply. “Land first. On a clear spot. I want to get my ass out of this shuttle asap before telling you anything else.”

“Why?” Weaver asked with a distrustful voice from the front seat, the situation turning awkward and dangerous once again.

“You can call it self-preservation if you want to, although I’d call it _not being stupid_.”

Sidonis grunted at her sarcasm and slid closer, predatory. And she confronted him, stupidly recklessly. In the corner of her eyes, she saw Archangel leaning imperceptibly forward and towards her in a menacing way and Alex thought that nothing would stop him if he decided to attack her, pull off her helmet and bit her head off. That would be it. The end. 

And she just waited for it, her wariness and the pounding in her chest growing at the seconds stretched. 

“Monteague, what’s nearby?” Archangel suddenly asked, his voice sounding far too close to her ear for her taste.

“I think Guadalupe alley is clear of cameras, am I right?”

“It was yesterday. It should be today,” Weaver pointed out.

“Heading there. ETA, five minutes.”

Although her breath was still shallow, she tried to relax her posture leaning back on the seat slowly, her hands on her knees harmlessly while both turians stared at her, flanking her. With everyone wearing their helmets, it was impossible to know what they were thinking at all. “This is gonna be the hell of a ride…” she joked, making Weaver chuckle nervously.

Archangel got out of the shuttle and she followed him. Sidonis was next. They both crossed their arms, waiting for her to speak but, before she did, she gazed at Sidonis, hesitant. 

“Everything you tell me, you can tell him too,” Archangel assured.

The Shadow sighed: that was a level of trust she didn’t like at all. Archangel trusted him, but she didn’t. Having Sidonis there only made things more difficult as she knew already that neither of them would like the information she had. “Aria has ordered me to kill Erash.”

The bomb had been dropped.

And reactions were to come. 

Archangel turned around while cursing loudly and walked some steps away from her, both hands behind his neck, defeated. But Sidonis stepped forwards aggressively. “What? She... what?”

She knew enough of subharmonics to know that that turian was seriously considering clawing her open. “Your mission at Gomorra club… It pissed the Blood Pack badly because that salarian worked for them.”

“You told me you destroyed the cameras!” Archangel shouted at her, suddenly turning to face her.

“And I fucking did. But they reviewed the indoor CCTV. Erash is perfectly framed on one of the videos, matching the date and the hour of the crime. It’s a matter of time that they find out her name and her address. Aria asked me to kill her in the name of the Blood Pack. Let’s make this thing clear: I don’t give a shit of how you do it, but she has to disappear. Or I’ll have to kill her.”

Sidonis shoved his hands to his helmet in frustration, unclasped it and pulled it off, throwing it towards her but the Shadow stopped it in the air with biotics and Sidonis emitted a feral growl, looking about to pounce at her. 

“What the fuck are you doing?” Archangel shouted to the other turian, walking forwards to calm him down, trying to put his helmet back on his head.

But Sidonis avoided his grip and spat on the ground, glaring at her. “She also knows my face, now. She’ll sell us all! Do you think she was doing this for good? Ha! She’ll kill us, one by one!” He dodged Archangel again and tried to reach for her, but the other turian pushed him back.

He was being stupidly unfair. “I am risking my neck by telling you this. Aria still trusts me… I can hide this to her… Tell her that I ended your friend. But she has to disappear or I’ll be at risk!”

Archangel grabbed Sidonis by his shoulders and told him something, and it seemed to have some sort of effect on him because the other turian calmed down, running a nervous three-fingered hand over his face and crest. Archangel turned around to speak to her with a contained but worried tone. “Any chance we can get her out of Omega?”

“I wouldn’t risk it. All the Blood Pack are looking for her. The port will be the first place. She has to hide and you cannot tell anyone where she is. Not even me.” 

The turian seemed thoughtful but it was impossible to say under the helmet, though. His chest raised and lowered down evenly with his breath. “Ok… It’s ok. You can go.”

Sidonis snapped at him, then. “What? Are you going to let her go just like that?”

“She could have said nothing. She could have done the job and disappeared after. We would have never known. And yet, she told us...”

“She’s trying to earn our trust to finish us all!”

“I don’t think she gets any benefit from this, Sidonis...”

“And don’t you think this is highly suspicious, Archangel? No one gives anything for free!”

The volume of their voices had grown in intensity and their body postures in aggressiveness: lengthened spine, head darted forward, legs slightly bent, their subharmonics sinking deeper… They walked slowly around each other, following an invisible circle. Or, better said, they prowled.

“I didn’t know that you were that deep into asari cunts...” Sidonis snarled, his voice low and full of hatred.

When Archangel spoke again, his tone was lighter, trying to ease some of the tension built up. “C’mon Sidonis. You know me… Asari are not my type of cunt...”

The Shadow sighed with disgust: she probably had had enough of them both bragging and arguing for the rest of her life. “So cute... A turian dick-measuring contest,” she retorted with wittiness. “You know what? Do what the fuck you want to: jump at each other’s neck or eviscerate yourselves. But, first, you better go and hide Erash before anyone finds her. Tell me when it's done."

And, just like that, she turned her back on them and walked away. 

Alex heard how Sidonis snorted. When she looked back over her shoulder, the helmet-less turian was walking back into the shuttle with slump shoulders and shaking his head in disagreement, but Archangel was still intently following her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, so just picture this: Sidonis, quite intense and visceral on the left seat, not trusting her at all. Archangel, full of mistrust and not knowing for sure if he's exposing his whole team to Aria's hitwoman, tension winding up every muscle of his body, trying to decide what to do. And Shadow on the middle, good intentions deep inside but still an asshole, sandwiched between two turians and, in spite of the situation, making witty comments.  
> I just love this girl.
> 
> Thanks for reading, leaving kudos and comments. You are amazing <3 <3 <3


	7. Vancouver reunions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [](https://imgbb.com/)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wait, what??? Two in a week?? Yes! This is crazy!!! 🙃

“So… What do you think, councillor? Did the waiting worth it?”

Councillor Anderson lingered his eyes over the skyline of the new Vancouver, clearly marvelled. “It has, Mrs Atiyeh… The view is just breathtaking.”

With a hint of nostalgia but, certainty, admiration, he contemplated how the glass skyscrapers raised over the ground level, glimmering under the setting sun and nearly reaching the clouds above. The whole metropolis, harmonic and consistent on the structural design and colours, looked superb; beautiful as all the new cities developed on Earth looked like. That had nothing to do with the chaotic urbanism of old London or the unstructured suburbs in New York: cities were a marvel by themselves at a level humanity couldn’t have come up with before: a piece of fine art. 

Luanda, Cape Town, Hong Kong, Miami… All the new settings had been carefully picked due to their strategic locations, proximity to resources and easy communication. All of them were cities wiped down to their foundations by the geth: ten years ago, there was nothing left of them but small piles of grey dust with the bitter taste of death. But, from all those new rebuilt cities, Vancouver was a special treat because it also accommodated the brand new Alliance headquarters and training grounds. That was why Anderson decided to give it the status of ‘guilty pleasure’, visiting it on the last day of his journey.

However, he hadn’t gone to Earth for leisure, but work. The Citadel Council had asked him to assess the progression of humanity during the last year: a routinary visit rather important in order to assess if the planet had met the targets established to guarantee their recovery and survival. And to keep their status within the sapient species from the galaxy. And things didn’t look bad at all: humanity had done their homework by far on such important issues as ecology, administration, reproduction and preservation of flora and fauna… They have even been able to tackle down some of the corruption that grew out of control all over the police force thanks to strict assessment measures and a careful recruitment process. Although he had to admit it had also helped that turians were still around, supervising them.

His briefing to the full Council would be astoundingly positive and it would give humanity a very good push on proving they were worthy to hold one of the chairs on that damn alien Council table with them.

“I never thought I’d be able to see this city again on its highest, considering it was no more than a crate on the ground ten years ago…” he spoke, still surprised about how fast - in just one year - the whole place had been rebuilt. “When I was young, building just one of these monstrosities took up to five years… Or even more!“ he explained, pointing at one of the smallest skyscrapers.

The female human emitted an acknowledgement  _ hum _ . She also remembered those times, before the extinction. “Asari’s architects are amazing, as you must know already. And the salarian engineers have had a paramount role in the machinery supply,” Cara Atiyeh, the metropolis governor, explained.

Anderson nodded again with a thoughtful expression, his eyes still admiring the views with delight. “Beautiful, indeed...”

Cara Atiyeh smiled, pride sipping over her serious and protocolary manners. She had been elected just six months ago when the repopulation of the newborn city began. The beginning had been tough but now, the whole metropolis bubbled with life and was filled with the laughter of children, to her delight.

Anderson sighed contemplative and wished he would have more time to explore around the streets when a deep hoarse and well-known voice interrupted his thoughts. He was actually looking forward to hearing that voice again. 

“Anderson! My old friend! What a pleasure! How's life treating you in the Citadel?” 

Admiral Hackett stepped confidently into his own office’s balcony with a thin but honest grin on his lips, his cold blue eyes half narrowed due to the decreasing light. In spite of his hard appearance, Anderson was fully aware of how much Hackett appreciated his visit: surviving an extinction and leading the remaining humans in the aftermath helped to create good acquaintances. 

The councillor smiled and stood at attention as he was used to doing, even if he didn’t have to anymore. “Admiral Hackett. Long time no see.”

Hackett cackled a laugh. “At ease, Anderson . This is not a formal meeting but a friend’s visit. Actually… you do have a higher rank than me now,  _ councillor. _ ”

Anderson eased his posture, entwining his hands behind his back. “Well, old habits die hard, admiral. I’m quite pleased to see you at last. And this beautiful city… I think I’m still in shock.” Both Hackett and Atiyeh couldn’t avoid widening their chest in pride before Anderson carried on. “Mrs Atiyeh had been kind enough to introduce me to our great-looking new Vancouver, which is the main point of my visit. But I was expecting for you to feed me in all the matters related to the Alliance, if it’s no trouble.”

The governor smiled politely, small wrinkles crackling the tips of her eyes when doing so, and understood well enough that that was her cue to leave the meeting. “Councillor, I’ll send your shuttle tomorrow at 10 am for the meeting with the citizen representatives. We’ll gladly provide you with all the information the Citadel council requires about this wonder before you go back to debrief.” She pointed her arm towards the mass of slender and graceful buildings in front of them. 

“Much appreciated, Mrs Atiyeh. I’ll see you tomorrow then.”

“Have a good evening,” she said, cheerfully, before walking out of the balcony and Hackett’s office. 

It was not until the door was shut when the councillor and the admiral truly relaxed, correctness forgotten. “It’s been a fucking while, Anderson. Where the heck have you been? I see life is treating you well...” the admiral chortled, looking at his friend with a sardonic grin.

Anderson chuckled with the satire of his old friend: endless sitting down meetings, parties, receptions, other democratic issues to discuss in the comfortability of an office… It was completely true that he had put some weight on, but what can be expected when he was no longer in active service but making sure that those squared turians, salarians and asaris were happy enough with humanity to keep financing the Earth reconstruction and their place within the sapient species...

A very delicate but, most and foremost, a very tiresome task. 

“However, you look exactly the same than two years ago, Hackett. Who could tell your age, anymore…” the councillor said after a chuckle.

Hackett shook his head in disbelief. “Well, my knees are far away from being the same as when I was young, and my hair has finally gone from grey to white. But, besides that, everything else is just fine! I should have retired already, but what can I say? I like my job. Do you want a scotch?”

Anderson scoffed at his wittiness and accepted the liquor: he was not the one to refuse a good whiskey, considering how diminished and precious the remaining bottles had become. Oddly, no one in ten years had been able to distil a good old whiskey like the ones before the attack. The admiral took his time pouring the exclusive golden liquid into the glasses: it was an expensive bottle, for sure saved for important occasions or special guests. Or friends. 

With a grateful gesture, Anderson accepted the offered liquor and smelled it, the scent bringing back memories of simpler times when aliens were only in the imagination of some tin foil hat conspiracy theorists. 

Happier times.

Easier times.

They all had to keep up and adapt to the challenge.

“How are things going here, then?” the councillor asked after a small sip of his drink, savouring it, his eyes back on the darker-now sky, contemplative.

“Not too bad… I’m sure you’ve heard the news about the population rising already.”

“Yes! Great news, indeed. Everyone in the Citadel was very pleased with them… Like if we were a bloody damned extinct animal.”

“Pfff... Who can blame them… Guiltiness moves mountains. Any news on the quarian front?”

Quarians… Quarians, quarians… A delicate and uncomfortable topic that Anderson didn’t want to deal with.

“Nothing… And I tried my best: reports had been made, I requested the presence of the leader of the Flotilla to ask for explanations and I have a bunch of the best lawyers already going through all the proof we have against them. But the creation of the geth happened more than a hundred years ago and… I don’t know. The geth nearly exterminated the quarians during the war. Obviously they are still responsible for their creation, but I don’t think we’re gonna be able to pursue them because of it… They had been punished enough by their mistakes, I suppose...”

Hackett shook his head with a grave gesture and unmistakable disdain. 

It hadn’t been long ago when some human history researchers in the Citadel came up with some old documents that the whole Council had taken care of ‘avoiding’ mentioning. What was ancient history for most of the Citadel races, struck the human leaders as a falling wall of boulders: geth were artificial intelligences created by another alien race a long time ago: quarians.

There was a huge crisis at the discovery and the human representatives demanded explanations to the Citadel Council: why had the truth been hidden for so long? Who were those ‘quarians’ and what their punishment had been for creating the geth? And, most and foremost, what would the consequences of the Earth attack be towards them?

All the unanswered questions led to the first conflict within the new spacial Council, dividing humanity in regards to how the topic should be addressed. Whilst the Council apologized and shielded in their good intentions and the fact that quarians had been already condemned about their acts - expelled from the Citadel, nearly decimated and obliged to be nomads at the destruction of their world after the geth’s wars - some factions of humanity were still not happy with the punishment and wanted to pursue them further as the ultimate culprit of the Earth extermination. 

Hackett was one of them.

The information was hidden to the vast majority of the Earth and human colonies population for their own sake at first. However, once the truth came to light, it spread like wildfire and gave people someone to blame for their disgrace: quarians were the reason why Earth had been destroyed down to ashes and dust and most humans were furious. And a furious multitude was always difficult to control. 

Hackett was not helping precisely spreading more hatred with his words, being obsessed with making them pay for their mistake.  “Fucking bureaucracy… If we only had more spaceships and not so many intergalactic laws I would wipe them from the map in the blink of an eye...”

Anderson frowned at his thoughts: perhaps he was getting too much into that bureaucratic and ambassadorial world already, but his discrepancies with the hot-blooded admiral were more obvious with the passing of the years. “That might not be the most correct way of dealing with that matter now we belong to the Citadel and we are subjected to its rules… The only thing I can say is that I’m on it, Hackett. And what about things here? Have you got any other candidate to Spectre on sight?” A change of topic was necessary to divert the attention into a less problematic subject considering they both disagree widely on their opinions on how to deal with the issue.

Hackett scoffed with scorn, probably getting his intention. However, he followed his lead. “We have some brilliant soldiers battling for the position, but not as good as Shepard though…”

Both men exhaled gravely and quietened for some seconds, his words bringing some bitter memories back. After dealing with everything that happened in the Citadel: Sovereign, Saren, the geth… Shepard had died in a routinary mission on board of her ship together with half of her crew. The Normandy had been attacked, according to the survivors, but the attacker ship had never been identified, neither her corpse recovered. 

It had been a direct and painful blow on the guts of the Alliance morale and an even harder one to the admiral’s pride. But it happened two years ago and, if anything they had learnt during that bloody war is that life always goes on.

“Alenko would make a fine candidate… The Council is really interested in elevating another human to the category of Spectre. It will give us status...”

Hackett made a hesitant involuntary gesture with his shoulders. “Yes… I completely understand that but I don’t know... He’s a good soldier and an even more powerful sentinel. But there’s this little thing with his implants… The L2 turned out to be more faulty than we thought at first, Anderson...”

Even if the news was utterly new to him, Anderson was not surprised at all: that whole biotics program had been a dangerous obstacle course from the beginning. He was surprised indeed that those poor kids were still alive… And sane. “How so?” his mind flooded of many other faces of youngsters invited by the Alliance to try the new heartless experimentation, being not more important than lab rats, all for humanity's sake.

“Well, you know… Migraines and all that stuff… He’s not getting any worse. But sadly, it’s impossible to replace them for medical reasons… He’s lucky, though: some of that first batch biotics are far worse than he is… Others don’t show symptoms at all… A lottery, I suppose: as Dr Alestia explained to me something about the body rejecting the implants after some years, like a sort of developed allergy to them, blah blah... 50% of the cases only show mild symptoms, like Alenko’s, but some of them… Well, I’ll save you the details. All the new biotic recruits have gone for the L3 and L4 already: less powerful but far more stable.”

With a hint of sorrow about those poor youngsters, Anderson nodded his head slightly. “That’s a shame… Staff Lieutenant Alenko is a fantastic soldier, I hope the migraines are not an impediment in his labour within the N7…”

Hackett grew back up again. “Nothing that some rest can't deal with. However, you understand why I can’t put him forward for the Spectre position, right?”

The captain sighed: he didn’t know for sure how bad his reaction to the implants was, but Spectres should be la creme de la creme of the alien species: the fittest and the healthiest. Not someone whose work had to be interrupted because of a migraine... “Where is he deployed now?”

“Here and there, mostly protecting the colonies,” Hackett stopped to think for a minute. Then, he opened his omnitool and flicked through some pages. “Here it is: his battalion is meant to be landing in Eden Prime this week.”

“Well, to the candidates to Spectre,” Anderson said, raising his glass. “Sooner or later, we will be able to have another human one, I suppose...”

“I drink to that. One day...”

Obviously, the measures to increase the birth rate had finally given results during the last two years and there was a nice bunch of babies and toddlers all around the cities now. Sadly, the admissions in the Alliance had frozen due to the age gap: it would take at least fifteen years until any of those newborns would begin their training and even more to make a N7 soldier and, therefore, find a new Spectre… Paediatricians, midwives and teachers were more necessary than soldiers at the moment, to both men dismay: a necessary evil and a hold on for the Alliance.

Sadly, and considering their ages, they wouldn’t be there in fifteen years to see the new batch of recruits shining in all its splendour.

The sky had become velvety dark and many stars began to twinkle in the crescent darkness. The light of the city shone like a lighthouse of hope in a foggy night in the middle of an intense silence and both men shared the peaceful and quiet moment, just them in front of the universe and their scotches. 

Until Hackett broke the moment with an incredulous chuckle. Anderson looked at him, baffled because of the abrupt back to reality. “Have you heard about this crazy project… Andromeda Initiative?”

The councillor nodded fervently. “I did, indeed… Crazy times for crazy measures, I suppose. They have more support than I expected. Even economically! I don’t know where they found the credits, though…”

Hackett clicked his tongue, his lips turning into a serious thin line. “There are always gullible people ready to waste their money… It’s just… I don’t get it. We have a second chance here… Beginning from scratch. Why flee to another galaxy?” 

With a shrug of his shoulders, Anderson replied. “It’s convenient for people that want to put things behind, I reckon...” 

“Yes, and I get that. But Andromeda? Do you know how long it will take them to arrive there? More than 600 years! That is just insane… And just to begin from scratch as we’re doing here! To be honest, I always thought that Ryder was a bit crazy, but after all this project, I think he’s just insane. Totally bonkers…”

Anderson laughed at the accurate, and theatrical, description of their mate Alec Ryder, but he had to admit that Hackett was a bit right this time. After more quiet minutes of contemplation and slow drinking, the councillor shook his hesitancy and spoke again. “And speaking about fleeing and disappearing… Any news about Murphy…?”

Hackett scoffed. “None… But looking at how the L2 implants had turned out to be, she must not be in a very good position right now...”

His concern seeped a bit on his expression and on the tone of his words. Anderson had to admit that he felt pity for her: a sort of paternal instinct moved him to constantly protect and forgive her mistakes during Alexandra’s time in the Alliance. For some strange reason, he felt a mild relief when she disappeared two years ago, lost into the dark and dangerous world of Omega. Or perhaps it was just his guilt relaxing slightly after what they had done to that poor girl. 

“She might be well dead by now. If frying the locator didn’t kill her, probably her faulty L2 will do...” Hackett carried on, lightly. 

His words set a chunk of responsibility in Anderson’s guts. Heavy, deep and painful responsibility. “You haven’t heard anything, I assume...”

“Nothing at all… Being on Omega, who knows?” Hackett grunted, pretending coldness and indifference although his hard-feelings made his hand clench around the empty glass until his knuckles were white.

Anderson sighed tiredly in response, secretly hoping that his friend was not right on that one. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Of course there had to be a bit of catching up between Anderson and Hackett! Because it had been more than 10 years already since the attack, who wouldn't want to know about the situation on Earth?  
> We have a little bit of compendium here: Earth reconstruction, natality, the evolution of humanity, quarians and their role creating the geth!!! - massive topic to be addressed if this series continues... - Shepard's death, research of a new human Spectre, the Andromeda Initiative - of course!!! :D - and, obviously, Second Lieutenant Murphy... Many many things these two needed to catch up with.  
> I hope you enjoyed it! ^^  
> I don't know if you've noticed about the rising number of chapters... My idea was 13 but I don't think I'll be able to fit everything and make it look neat and tidy, so I added 2 more  
> Thanks to everyone following Alex and Garrus adventures, kudos, comments, likes on Tumblr... You're really boosting my creativity ❤️❤️❤️


	8. masquerade

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Could this be my favourite chapter ever? No doubts about it!

While queueing up outside, Archangel looked uneasily at the glowing bracelet that granted him access to the private masquerade party in the AfterLife. In front of him, a batarian and a turian, directed by the elcor bouncer, padded down all the attendees, confiscating weapons and drugs. Once a year, during the massive event that Aria’s birthday party was, high-quality drugs were offered to all the guests for a reasonable price, sold with outrageous impunity on every floor, right next to the bar. Within the guests, high ranks of Omega’s ‘police’, gang leaders, slavers, drug dealers, smugglers, politicians and bank owners were invited as VIP and the tickets for ordinary people were so scarce and valuable that anyone would kill to buy one.

The etiquette was also so strict that Archangel had to buy an elegant black suit especially for the occasion. It was not very common for a turian, but he was also wearing a black mask, covering his clan marks. The fact that the damned mask didn’t let him use his visor was quite annoying him indeed. And, obviously, he was unarmed. 

Archangel stepped forwards and towards the entrance: it was his turn to be searched. The grim-faced batarian read his bracelet with his omnitool, emitting a boredom noise, while the turian held his breath, nervousness distilling through every pore of his hide.

There was no reason for not trusting her at this point, was it? 

The elcor read the outcome on his visor and turned his head up. His voice was a slow and deep rumble. “Welcome to the AfterLife, Mr Wolf.”

Archangel exhaled, relieved. 

With a quick nod to the bouncer and catching a glimpse of Vortash, still waiting far behind on the queue, he entered the AfterLife.

The crowd of warm bodies brushing against each other made it difficult to advance right from the entrance, where the usual holographic flames burned with more intensity than ever before. But it was the darkness, eventually interrupted by flashy lights, what really struck him hard when he got into the club. All the faces were hidden from sight, covered under the different patterned masks. The mixture of scents made it difficult to identify anything around himself and, to top it all, he didn’t have his visor. 

Blind in the middle of the tide of people that flooded the place. Just great.

Archangel made his way towards the bar and ordered a bourbon to the turian with glowing facial paint. While being served, and as a habit, he scanned that floor of the club: different species chatted, danced and mingled around him, nobodies just enjoying the party and getting plastered, drinking or snorting on the counter with total impunity. Right next to him there was a bowl with small flasks that said ‘Drink me’ handwritten on the label: asari liquid ecstasy if he had to guess. 

A female turian on a dress that showed in a very explicit way her more-than-perfect waist, leaned suggestively to grab one of the bottles and beamed at him playfully. She offered him one with a cheeky flutter of her mandibles, feeling his eyes still glued to her exposed hide, but Archangel came back to his senses, refusing with a small gesture of his hand. The woman shrugged, mildly disappointed, and got lost into the crowd.

He followed the swing of her waist with wondering eyes until it disappeared and cursed himself for the lost opportunity. But he was on a mission. _They_ were on a mission. 

And, speaking of whom… 

“ _Archangel, do you copy?_ ” her metallic voice screeched on the comm.

“Yes. I’m in. Is this channel secure?”

“ _Secure enough for us. It’s a shortwave radiofrequency. It doesn’t have much reach but it can’t be tapped. Is it a hint of relief that I’m hearing on your subvocals? Did you still think I was luring you to the wolf’s den?_ ”

Her tone was jokingly, as it had been during their last communications. Light and easy. Even with that annoying metallic distortion. They were at ease at each other and Archangel was still shocked about how much her opinion about her has changed within the events. The turian cleared his throat and grabbed the drink the barman had just left next to him. “An occupational hazard, I suppose…” 

There was a short silence on her side. “ _Have you ever been to a party like this?_ ” she asked, diverting the topic into the personal field.

Archangel scoffed, thinking of how many Citadel legislations those people were actually breaking. Some of his ex C-Sec colleagues would have a mild stroke just thinking of it. “Well… more than I would have liked to… Does this happen often?”

“ _Nah, not really… Just on Aria’s birthday. The rest of the year people have to pay full fare to get high and drunk. But, the gathering is less exclusive, of course. This is the fullest I’ve seen this place in a long time, though..._ ”

“Do you come often?”

Again, there were some quiet seconds on the comm: Shadow seemed to be considering if telling anything else about her story with the AfterLife would be appropriate. “ _Yes, I did at first… But now I just avoid it as much as I can: coming here is an obligation rather than an enjoyment._ ”

He sipped on his drink, thoughtful. There was nothing that he wanted more than to pull her story out of her. To find a way to help her. 

“Why Mr Wolf?” he asked after some minutes of self-absorption.

Her burst of laughter sounded metallic into his ears like moved by an incomprehensible joke. “ _Because Mr Wolf solves problems, as well as you do…_ ”

That must have been a translation fault because still, he didn’t get the joke at all. 

“ _Sorry, it was a silly thing to say… Where are you?_ ” she asked, still amused.

“Ground floor, but heading into the first now. And you?”

“First floor already, here and there…”

“Can you be more specific? _Here and there_ as location is a little vague…” he complained while making his way through the dance floor towards the stairs.

Her tone was amused again, playful. “ _Are you trying to track me up, Archangel? Nice suit, by the way…_ ”

Archangel frowned, his mandibles flaring out in confusion. _How did she…? What the fuck…?_ He looked around, searching for her unknown face: an unattainable task.

Until she chuckled on the line. “ _Relax, relax mate… I’m just messing with you. But I didn’t know you were wearing a suit until now. I’m on the right balcony dropping the package as we agreed._ ”

Garrus frowned. The Shadow… she had those things. Playful, flirty comments sometimes. It began several weeks ago after their second encounter. They set the targets using the private message system and she had stayed aside, as he had asked her to. But the messages started to come more frequently and definitely more relaxed. More personal without being personal at all: they talk about their days, about the last film they watched or joked about the awful electricity companies that operated in Omega. She was… Real… Normal... And fun for being an asari. 

After some successful missions in a row, he just followed her lead when she proposed that strike on Aria’s birthday in the AfterLife. 

Sidonis had categorically refused to join in, alleging something about him being blindfolded by the enemy and the same happened with half of his team. Well, he didn’t need them all at once, anyway: Vortash would infiltrate with him and Grundan Krul would wait on the shuttle at some distance, granting their escape. The four of them together had planned that mission thoroughly. The target? Aria’s personal drug trafficker himself. 

The Shadow got them two of the bracelets that gave access to the party and there they were. 

“ _Ey, what’s up guys? Did you miss me? Wow! That’s a body, girl!_ ” Vortash said and wolf-whistled, probably distracted by any asari around him. 

Archangel rolled his eyes. “Vortash? Focus. Drink and go to the right balcony,” he said, reaching the first floor and making his way towards the left one.

“ _Ok, Archangel. Understood. Tell me, Shadow, is there any chance you are wearing one of these asari dresses…?_ ” the batarian joked, although Archangel knew that his intention was clearly flirtatious.

“ _No, Vortash. I’m just fully naked now and waiting for you.._ .” the Shadow retorted on the comm with a fully metallic but fake-wanton voice. “ _Package dropped on the right balcony, by the way_.”

“ _Well, no more words needed, ma’am. Let me get my drink, hang out a bit and I’ll be heading up in five. I’m out for now_.” 

Dodging some of the couples that were making out on the stairs to the balcony, Archangel reached the handrail and leaned on it, his gaze studying the absolutely packed dance floor when the stroboscopic lights lightened intermittently. “In position.”

“ _Good,_ ” she replied. “ _Mhmm… Isn’t it exciting that we are right in front of each other but we don’t know who the other is…?_ ”

That feeling of danger, the taste of the forbidden, was what made him gaze up. He lingered his electric blue eyes discreetly over the figures that leaned on the opposite balcony: too far, dark and too overcrowded to distinguish anyone’s features. Curiosity picked on him, once again. That asari, the Shadow, was right in front of his nose. Where could she be…? 

“ _I know! Let’s play a game. We can ask questions, ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answers. There’s just one rule: you cannot lie_.”

Her tone was playful once again, daring. And Archangel felt strangely reckless that night. “Both know you will lie...”

She snickered. “ _Have a little faith in me, turian. I promise I won’t. Well, let me think… Again… are you wearing a suit?_ ”

Archangel didn’t know for sure why he followed her lead. “Erm… yes? I thought you already knew this one…” he replied, having another sip of his bourbon.

“ _I just wanted to make sure. Not that it will improve my chances to find you here, though. Your turn._ ”

He didn’t want to step into any unnecessary personal matter. He didn’t want to push their boundaries at all. “Are you wearing a dress?”

“ _I am. I love dresses… Do you have a mask on?_ ”

“Yes, I do. An easy deduction considering this is a masquerade party…” he told her with wittiness.

“ _Ha, ha, very funny. I’ve seen many turians with glowing facial paint covering their clan marks. I just wondered if you were so reckless to be one of them._ ”

“That seems to be quite trendy on Palaven raves nowadays but I was not in the mood for it this evening…” Archangel observed blurrily how one of the figures on the balcony, a woman, stood up and walked away from the railway, getting lost into the mass of people dancing behind her. “Have you just moved away from the handrail? _”_

There was an incredulous soft scoff on the comm, preceded by a brief silence. _“I did, indeed. Very observant, Archangel. I’ll have to be more cautious around you… Heading to the dance floor now,_ ” she stated.

His stomach flipped strangely at her confirmation: that odd excitement feeling growing in his guts once again. It was dark, it was forbidden and it was highly unwise. Out of bounds at so many levels that the part of himself that still stored his C-Sec officer screamed with wariness in his mind. Theirs should have been a truce. A secret agreement between enemy parts that benefitted both of them. Why she was flirting and he was answering to it, as bad as he was at it, was still a mystery for him. But Archangel just couldn’t help it. “I have to admit that I’m very good at finding people, Shadow. And some would say that at helping them, too…” he casually dropped, not knowing what his intentions were exactly.

“ _Mhmm… Are you growing fond of me, Archangel? It’s sad that I’m not a princess that needs to be rescued from the dragon’s claws. Not anymore, at least…_ ”

It was not the first time that Archangel offered her help. Of course, she never took his offer. He had recently heard about the ‘favour for a favour’ policy that Aria T’Loak worked with. He secretly hoped that Shadow was just another of her ‘slaves by contract’, although she had never confirmed it to him. If he could just get her to trust him… “Ok, no saving for now. I get it.”

“ _Good… Does your drink have a little umbrella in it?_ ”

“What? No… Let me guess: you have found an attractive turian with a fancy drink and you wondered if it was me?”

Garrus was nearly sure that she had rolled her eyes at his comment. “ _Damn it! You got me… I was nearly sure it was you. Well, your turn_.”

“ _Ey, guys, I’m back online. What did I miss, apart from the flirting?_ ”

“ _Oh, nothing really. I was just trying to seduce your boss…_ ” she exhaled.

Garrus felt the hide of his neck burn at the comment. What they were doing was bad at so many levels... 

“ _Well, if it doesn’t work, I don’t mind being the second choice…”_ Vortash replied swiftly.

It was Archangel who huffed this time while the Shadow giggled on the comm. 

“ _Ok, ok. I get it, Archangel. Heading to the balcony to get the package._ ”

“Thanks, Vortash. Have we got eyes on the target?” Archangel focused back on the task they had in hand.

“ _Affirmative. He’s in the VIP area, second table on the left. One bodyguard._ ”

One bodyguard… Damn, those were good news…

Vortash spoke then. “ _Archangel, the package is here. Unwrapped, check and safe. Awaiting instructions._ ”

The music changed the beat slightly but still was repetitive, loud and certainly annoying. “I’m heading to the corner. Maintain positions until he moves. Be ready.”

“ _Roger that,_ ” she replied to the order. Quite a human military line…

Sliding across the mass of people congregated, Archangel walked toward the other side of the balcony and stood on a spot where it was possible to control the dance floor as well as the VIP bathroom door on his same level. The comm remained silent, being the party-goers the only muffled voices under the thunderous music, and Garrus skimmed his gaze distractedly over the dancers downstairs. The intermittent flashing light that illuminated it followed the same beat than the music and, again by instinct, he searched for all the rather scarce red-headed humans he could find: a pointless effort. 

Until a creaky voice interrupted his mission. “ _Do turians wear anything under their civvies? I mean, being your dicks internal, do you need underwear at all?_ ”

Vortash burst into laughter and Arcangel spluttered incoherencies before being able to properly reply. Damned asari… “That’s the weirdest question I’ve ever heard from anyone regarding turians…” he complained.

“ _Yep… but remember the rules: you can only say the truth._ ”

Why were they playing that game, again...? “Sometimes…? Mostly not.”

“ _Do you, right now?_ ”

Well, all that conversation was getting way too heated… He definitely should not be following her lead. “You have asked two questions in a row. But the answer is ‘no’.” He wouldn’t dare to ask. He should not. “And you?” he purred, wondering if his subvocals were too obvious with his excitement at that point. 

He shouldn’t and yet, he did. 

“ _Hi? I’m still here…?_ ” Vortash muttered. 

And she chuckled at his questions, ignoring Vortash and replying playfully. “ _If you find me, I’ll let you check it by yourself…_ ” 

The breath hitched in his lungs and an involuntary rush of arousal electrified the length of his spine. He never had a thing for asaris, but Shadow...

“ _Ok, ok! You two, find a hotel room, please…_ ” Vortash begged them.

“Erm… Sorry, Vortash.” Garrus tried to sound as composed as he could, apologetic. 

“ _No harm done… Yet. Shadow, are you by any chance wearing a red dress?_ ”

“ _Nope. Why?_ ”

“ _That asari on the platform… Yummy…_ ”

“ _Oh, I see her… Sorry, mate. You have me on high opinion._ ”

The conversation diverted into something stupid related to asaris and something else that Garrus was not listening to anymore, his own guiltiness deafening his mind: that had to stop. Their flirting. She was just messing with him. It had to stop.

But he didn’t lie when he said he was observant. From the balcony, still scanning the dancing floor illuminated by the rhythm of the music, he caught a glimpse of her. He was sure he did. Swimming against the tide. The small white mask covering her eyes and nose. Alone. 

His heart stopped. 

Alex? 

It lasted three briefs seconds, just enough to catch the details of her blue hair on the dim light and the lack of tattoos both on her back and left arm. It was not her. Why would she be there, anyway? Perhaps he was just turning insane. 

“Shadow, do you have blue hair?” Such a stupid question, considering she was an asari…

Both Vortash and her went quiet on the comm. She only replied after a little while, her voice as playful as it could be. “ _No. Of course I don’t._ ” Her laugh afterwards was painfully metallic and frozen cold. 

Of course not…

The three of them spoke for a little while, basically complaining about the volume of the music and the taste of the drinks they ordered. It caught Archangel’s eye for less than a flash of light that the blue-haired female had joined one of the dancing groups. Her hair was shoulder length and cobalt blue and the dress she wore left most of her torso exposed, from her hips to the base of her small breasts, and he couldn’t help but remember the soft texture of human skin under his touch. A very tempting sight for a turian and Garrus sheath throbbed in agreement. That was going too far: he really needed a fuck.

“ _Targets are moving,_ ” the Shadow said, taking him away from his spiral of self-pity and desire. Archangel brushed the thoughts away and stood at attention, clearing his mind, finding the salarian that had just stood up followed by his krogan bodyguard.

“ _He’s heading to the bathroom upstairs. Good hunt,_ ” she said, disconnecting her comm immediately after. 

She was not joining them, of course. He didn't ask her to. They will finish that bastard by themselves. “Ok, Vortash, waiting for you.”

“ _Heading there. Give me 30 secs._ ”

The named bathroom, the commonsense option for the VIP area, was right upstairs from it on the conjunction of the left and the right balcony and Archangel was already round the corner. He waited four seconds for Vortash to confirm.

“ _In position. How many people are there?_ ”

“The target, bodyguard and three civilians that I’ve counted. Let’s go.”

They both turned at the same time and walked towards the bathroom coming from opposite directions, finally meeting at the door. The batarian was wearing a blue and red suit and a black mask that covered the top part of his face. He pulled the M-5 Phalanx out of his pocket and undid the trigger lock. 

“Vortash, you have the gun. I don’t want crossfire,” Archangel warned him.

“Noted. You give me little credit, boss...”

The turian was good at long distance but, in situations like this one, where the targets were at hand distance, Vortash was definitely better. Besides, if things went sideways, he had more skill in hand-to-hand combat.

“Ready when you are.”

Archangel rested his talons on the door for a second. Then, he pushed. Vortash burst in first. On a quick scan, he detected an asari snorting a red powdery substance close to the sinks. Two turians were fucking in one of the closed toilets very loudly, but no one paid attention to them. The salarian was washing his hands and the krogan bodyguard stood next to him.

Vortash shot once, aiming to the krogan’s head. Yellow blood and part of his brain mass splashed on the mirror with the muffled shot. The asari straightened up in panic, mouth and eyes wide open in bewilderment: she looked very stoned. The salarian froze momentarily before a new shot went straight to his brain. He dropped dead on the floor, a pool of greenish blood growing under him. The turians just kept fucking in the bathroom, utterly alien to what was happening. 

Archangel grabbed the shocked asari by her arms and made her look him in the eye. “We are not going to harm you in any way. That was a very important drug dealer and the world is a better place without him. We are going to lock you into this bathroom and then, you’ll be free to go, understood?”

The asari gave a sideway look to Vortash, who smiled, raising the Phalanx in a salutation gesture. Then, she looked back at Archangel and nodded fervently.

“Good,” he said. 

They both stepped out the VIP bathroom and closed the door after them. Archangel tapped something in his omnitool, a couple of codes that the Shadow had given them, and the door locked with a metallic sound. 

“Nice pistol… I think I’ll keep it…” Vortash said, admiring the lines of the weapon. “Light and nice. You think it’s hers?”

Archangel shook his head. “Time to go, mate.” 

With a feeling of sufficiency, Vortash and him headed towards the left balcony. From there, they would go back to the ground floor and out to the street using the back door into the residential area. Grundan would be waiting for them some squares ahead.

Things had been smooth and easy as they had ever been before. With a growing pride in his chest, both hit the lower level with its quieter and more relaxed music. Asaris danced on the platform at the sides of the bar and a confetti cannon popped in that exact moment creating a surreal rain of gold around them. He wished he could stay there. Perhaps find her and buy her a drink. The blue-haired woman. The asari dancer on the red dress. The sexy turian who offered him the liquid ecstasy. Or perhaps the Shadow…

She jumped into his thoughts and disappeared as swiftly as she came, as graceful and mortal as she was. Garrus cursed himself. That was a dangerous thought and he was playing a dangerous game. Why was he attracted to her? He didn’t even know who she was. He brushed his thoughts away but the hot throbbing feeling in his trousers remained. _Spirits_ , he really needed to do something about that.

The doorman checked on their bracelets in case they wanted to come back inside later.

Suddenly, their comms went back to life with the hurried metallic voice of the Shadow brittle in their ears. “ _Archangel, do you copy? Fuck... The asari you locked in the bathroom works for Aria. She phoned security and they’re looking for you. You have to get the hell out of here, now!”_

The rear door slid open for them and Vortash and Archangel looked at each other for a worried instant before stepping out. 

The door shut behind them swiftly. Too swiftly. Keeping all the scandalous music inside. 

They looked forward at the usually empty alley where their escape route was. But this time, it was not.

_Well, fuck._

A rain of bullets ricocheted around them and they had to look for cover behind a stone bench on their left.

“Holy shit. How many?” Vortash asked.

“Seven. Right in front of us and heavily armed….”

“Ok... Pistol’s yours. You are better at distance.”

Archangel scoffed while catching the weapon. “We’re fucked.” He shot, nearly blindly, just to keep the others away and let them know they would put up a fight.

“I can dazzle one of them, ready?”

The turian deep breathed, evening his pulse. “Do it.”

Vortash stood and overloaded one of the turian’s barriers, stunning him momentarily and squatting back down swiftly. At the same time, Archangel stood, steading his pulse.

Breath in. Aim. Shoot. Breath out. 

Straight on the forehead. He lowered down before a bullet reached him. 

“ _Where are you?_ ” the Shadow asked, her voice sounded extra urgent and rushed..

“Rear door. They have cornered us. We could do with some help...” Vortash pleaded.

Archangel didn’t back him up, but neither disagreed.

“ _I can’t. They’ll know who I am… How many?_ ”

“Seven… Six now.”

“ _How many magazines?_ ”

“Just one. Not enough bullets...” the turian mumbled under his breath.

Aria’s men were still firing at them but not getting any closer. They had them cornered against the rear door of the club: they were trapped. Archangel inferred that they must have called for backup. That was what he would have done if he had been them. They didn’t stand a chance with one pistol, but they could put up the hell of a fight. 

Archangel gave the pistol back to Vortash, who frowned, puzzled. “Empty the clip at the door when it opens.”

“Wait, and you? What will you do?” the batarian asked.

“I’ll improvise. We’ll run back inside once you kill them.”

Vortash nodded and scoffed loudly. “You know that your plan is a piece of shit, right?”

The turian did anything but cackling a bitter chuckle, worry thrumming in his subvocals loudly. “I’m all ears if you have a better one.”

They both turned their faces to the door behind them when it suddenly slid open and Vortash raised the Phalanx, ready to do as he’d been told. However, before he had the chance to do it, Archangel reached for the pistol and jerked his hands down, a shot wasted on the ground. 

A lone figure stood at the door, her whole head and body covered with an oversized traditional turian cape. It stepped out from the AfterLife aiming at the gang and Archangel only recognized her because her hand stuck out from the cape for a second, shining in purple. Shadow threw a blind shockwave that had the desired effect: to create some chaos and gave him time to confront the situation. 

Vortash tossed the pistol back to Archangel and he automatically stood up and aimed. 

Four seconds. Four shots. Four targets fell dead. 

She slammed the fifth onto the ground. 

Archangel got rid of the sixth. 

The Shadow ducked her head at them, her features hidden under the hood and the dim lights. Then, she turned on her heels and strode back into the AfterLife without any words at all.

It has been brief. Ten seconds perhaps, but time enough for him to glimpse the clues. It was only when Vortash pulled his arm when he finally sprung up and ran away.

Her hand was not blue. 

But the lock of hair that had poked out the hood was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Massively long chapter, this one! I hope I was able to capture the AfterLife environment appropriately. I really enjoyed writing their shameless flirting, even if they don't know who the other is, it was just really hot and real fun!
> 
> All Omega story has grown wrapped up around some crucial moments that flashed in my mind while sketching it: Alex arriving at Omega, Archangel's introduction and, most and foremost, this masquerade for Aria's birthday - and another couple of scenes I'm not allowed to write just yet. The stupid coincidence of not knowing who the other is, the decadent Omega life, drugs, sex, alcohol... I've never written anything similar in my whole life, so dark and crude.  
> Thank you all for following it, commenting, 'kudoing' it, sharing on Tumblr... You're amazing 💜💜💜


	9. shit

The rhythmic beat of the music still resounded in her ears when she exited the masquerade by the main entrance, and it had a hypnotic, primal effect in her mindset: survival. The night cycle was chilly if there was to be any resemblance with a real season, but Alex was far too absorbed to notice. With the adrenaline and her own heart pumping wildly, and only focusing on her anxious thoughts and the repetitive beat of the music echoes, she walked towards the shuttle stop and then, towards her home as an automaton. She had lost any ability to think critically after what happened in the AfterLife. After she had exposed herself in such an obvious way. 

Such a reckless way.

The CCTV was everywhere in that club. Sooner or later, she would spot her in some camera, stealing the turian cape, putting it on or taking it off. And walking out the back door to help that damn turian… 

Shit. 

Whatever. It was a matter of time. She was screwed up. 

Aria would know and she’d be dead.

With a shaky hand, she typed the eight-digit code that gave access to her house and locked the door after herself, getting rid of her dress and the wig immediately after: her armour would do a better job to stop the bullets. 

And it was just a matter of time that she came for her. Alex was sure of it.

But she wouldn’t die without putting up a fight: if she were about to be killed, she’d take with her as many of her minions as she could. Alex walked gravely and determined towards her wardrobe and extracted her weapons drawer: a Phalanx, N7 Piranha and a couple of grenades, the weight of each of them comforting her slightly on a fake security feeling. 

She grabbed them all, and a bottle of bourbon from the kitchen counter: liquid courage.

Shoving all her goods on the floor, she rearranged the furniture of the entry path to clear her view of the main door and windows and sat on the floor across with a tired and deterministic sigh, her back against the wall.

After displaying the weapons around her, Alex opened the bottle, drinking a sip and grimacing at the real and hot burning of the alcohol going down her throat, but it didn’t help to ease her pessimism, not even a bit. 

She was dead, but she didn’t want to die. After everything... Two years… She could not die this way. But she had dug her own tumb, opened the coffin, got inside and nail the fucking lid on it. All of it just because of her ‘good heart’ for helping Archangel.

The human darkly chuckled. “ _ Y _ ou stupid, reckless bitch… You’re about to lose everything because of an impossible crush. Shit…” She shook her head and cackled a bitter laugh, still sceptical about her decision. 

It was true that she had flirted with him, shamelessly and deliberately. It was just that feeling of danger. The exciting taste of the forbidden that made him so interesting. And the anonymity. She had no idea of who he was in spite of the time they had been ‘working together.’ It was exciting. He was a funny guy once you got to know him, and his voice was... sexy. Alex was fully aware that that path was not taking her anywhere, and there was not a minimum chance they both ended up together. None at all. That was real life, not a princess story. But, even if the most rational part of her brain tried very hard to advise against their long conversations and their stupid flirting, she had grown fond of him. 

She just could not let him die. And neither Vortash...

But at what cost? “Better you do something good with the fucking second chance I’m giving you, Archangel… You better do…” she mumbled while fumbling with her omnitool to send the ‘Red code’ message to Mordin:  _ I’m at risk, don’t you even think of coming here now _ .

The second sip of bourbon still tasted like hell, but the third and the fourth started to be bearable and it began to numb her anxiety, lowering the spike of adrenaline. Until the intermittent orange light on her omnitool flashed, announcing she had a new email. Alex swallowed hard, her saliva suddenly turning thick in her mouth. Having rational thoughts of it, Aria wouldn’t send her an email before killing her. That only left one option left. When she opened the inbox with a shaky digit, the unmistakable logo of the blog Archangel and she used for their communications. With a fed up huff, she connected the encrypting device and logged into her messages to find, as expected, one from him.

_ Thanks for your help, but you are clearly at risk now. I can protect you. Let me help.  _

_ PS/You lied, btw. _

Then, a long string of numbers that were encrypted coordinates. His hideout? Their HQ, perhaps?

“Fuck.” She pinched the bridge of her nose with her fingers, giving some rest to her tired eyes and her brain. That night she hadn’t exposed herself just to the AfterLife CCTV: she had made the mistake to show herself with no armour in front of him, Archangel. Her bare hands, probably her arms, perhaps even her face… And he was a clever lad. Too clever, to her dismay. The asari cover wouldn’t work with him anymore. “He must know that I’m human. And, from there, there are not many options left…”

With a grimace at the, more than sure, dangerous loss of anonymity in front of the Omega’s vigilante, she drank again from the bottle as if the bliss of the alcohol could solve any of her problems. Then, she dried her mouth with the back of her left hand, her right already tight on the grip of the Phalanx, her breath even and focused. Could she trust him? Probably killing her wouldn’t be his choice, considering they had gotten somehow ‘close’, but she couldn’t be sure of it in that pantomime that the world was around her… But, what if his concern was genuine? Could she go to him for help?

No. Not that night. That would be a thing to worry about if Aria’s men did not kill her. If she lived to see another metaphoric dawn in Omega.

Hopeless and fatalistic, Alex just waited for her end.

However, the night went by as the content of the bottle went down. The clock marked 6 am when her eyes began to close. She dozed a couple of times, utterly drunk, before falling unconscious. Probably for the best: on her state, she couldn’t have aimed and killed an elcor even if he was right in front of her, paralysed and unarmed. 

The quicker it finished would probably be better for everyone.

“Alexandra… Alexandra! Wake up!” 

The nasal voice echoed in her empty brain painfully as if it came from hell. She groaned and her spirit flinched, every part of her body feeling numb and sore.

“Damn it, Alexandra… Alcohol ingestion doesn’t solve problems… Gives even more! Stand up…” 

In front of her hesitation, the salarian put her weapons away and squatted next to her, his arm around her waist, trying to lift her dead weight. Despite his best efforts, the human just whimpered pathetically, brushing his hands away in the middle of her alcoholic stupor and Mordin let her drop again on the floor with a grunt. “Mhmm… Different approach is required,” he mumbled before heading to the kitchen, searching the cupboards until he found a big bowl in one of them.

Alexandra took his departure as a blurred victory and covered her head with her arms, curling her body on the cold hard floor, trying to find a comfortable position. However, her momentarily success didn’t last long: as soon as she was slipping again out of consciousness, she felt the shock of the icy cold water that his friend poured unceremoniously all over her. She jumped up, utterly confused, her eyes snapping open and her breath hitching in her chest. Suddenly recalling the whole life-threatening situation that took her to get plastered and sleep on the floor last night, she automatically reached out for a Phalanx that was not there anymore. 

“Fuck…” she shouted, bracing for the worst. The light was so bright that she thought perhaps she was already dead. However, her pounding heart and throbbing headache spoke otherwise. Her eyes were finally able to focus on the single alien shape that was with her in her dining room. “Mordin…?” the human asked, utterly confused, her voice strained and hoarse with the dehydration. 

“In the flesh. Here, drink,” the salarian said, handing her out a glass with water. “Painkillers dissolved in it.”

With her head still pounding, but slightly calmer now, Alex downed the water before speaking. “I told you not to come… What time is it?”

“Nearly 2 pm… I didn’t come. No one came. She doesn’t know…”

“Shit… how? I mean... “

“If you’re not dead by now, I don’t think you will. Can I know what happened?”

Her stomach settled slightly and the painkillers started to kick in as her memories came back: the AfterLife, the flirting, their mission, the ambush… She rubbed her forehead, trying to brush away the hungover and her own worry. It was then when Alex realised of the multiple icons on her omnitool that warned her about messages, but she put them all off for now. “I… I made a mistake… They were in danger: Archangel and Vortash. And I saved them. But doing it I exposed myself to Aria...”

The salarian blinked a couple of times before speaking again, considering. “I wouldn’t call that a mistake, rather than a decision. But why?”

Alex leaned her head back on the wall, not ready to admit that he liked that fucking turian as if he was one of his squadmates. And squadmates protect each other.

Was that it?

“We work together… I had to.” She smothered her temples with a grimace. “I suppose I have a big fluffy heart under the hideous crust…”

Mordin gave her a sideways gaze at her sardonic reply, probably knowing that there was more softness and kindness under the ‘hideous crust’ that she was ready to show. “Pack your stuff up: you’re coming to my house. No arguments,” he ordered with determination. 

Alex was ready to protest but before she could, the salarian had already gathered some of her clothes, opening and closing her chest of drawers at the speed of light. “You’ll be safer with me. I don’t think she’s discovered you, but just in case. Cautiousness is paramount now. Check your messages. You have to fake normality.”

With a nod of her head, Alex sheepishly walked towards the bathroom and brushed her teeth until the smell of alcohol disappeared under the peppermint flavour. While the doctor put her furniture back in place with a loud rumble, she scrolled down on the interface of her messages: one was from Aria, summoning her into her office in a couple of days. Bitter bile crawled up her throat due to the anxiety that meeting made her feel, but Mordin was right: if Aria T’Loak would have known of her treason, she wouldn’t have called her in for a meeting after two days: Alex would already be dead. The other three messages were from the blog, hinting messages from Archangel. 

She didn’t reply last night and he was clearly worried about her safety.

Alex nibbled at her lower lip, hesitant about what to do about him. With a deep breath in to calm herself down, she replied to Aria with a few words, confirming her attendance and, in spite of the warm feeling that Archangel’s concern made her feel in her chest, she deleted his messages without even opening them.

That was the right choice: just two more months and she’d be free. All she needed was to lay low and not make any more mistakes, and teaming up with Archangel was a risk that she could not afford anymore.

***

Archangel tapped methodically on the desk with his talons, his omnitool bright on the dim colours of the night. It was late, far past midnight. Far past she had come back into the AfterLife. The double tick marked the message he sent as read: he had offered her help and, against all his common sense, had given her his own home coordinates. 

But there had been no reply. Not a single message. Nothing. 

Thinking of the worst was inevitable but he brushed the idea away as best as he could.

After another sip of his bourbon, Garrus leaned back on the chair, closing his eyes, and smothered his neck with a hand. Recalling the scene might help to clear his mind a bit, and perhaps quieten his growing anxiety. “ _ The door slid open… There was a purple glimmer, like every time she is around. The cape was grey, turian, but clearly not hers. She stepped forwards: three steps. Shockwave. A blue lock under the hood: straight cobalt hair. Her arm…  _ ‘

“Damn it!” Garrus opened his eyes with frustration and slammed his hands on the table. It didn’t matter how many times he played it in his mind: her hands were still that colour white humans were, not blue or purple as he should have expected for an asari.

She was a damned human. 

She was a damned human and it had slipped under his radar for more than four months. Why had he assumed she was an asari? What sort of detective was he, taking things for granted?

Over those two years he had spent in Omega, he was aware of how much progress the biotic research program had achieved within human species. There was an actual squat of them training and working under the orders of the Alliance and even for the C-Sec. But the Shadow had been there for more than two years… It was impossible that she belonged to that new batch of lab rats... 

The thought only made him feel more anxious, trying not to shape into his mind the conclusions he was inevitably arriving at. He checked his omnitool once again and sent another message using the private system on the blog: 

__

_ We need to talk. Please, confirm you are ok.’ _

He re-read the message before sending it. One, two times. It sounded desperate and he was fully aware of it. Well, he actually was. He pressed the send button anyway. 

After ten minutes, another bourbon poured, still no response.

Garrus emptied the amber liquid in the glass in one gulp and stood up to pace restlessly around the room, trying to rationalize his blurred thoughts. There was a clear chance - a rather huge one, indeed - that the woman he had considered an asari was not an asari at all, but a human. The small detail of the hair: blue, like the woman walking upstream on the club, dancing with the red-dressed asari… There was quite a real chance that that woman he had spotted was the Shadow. And there was also a remote, but more-than-plausible possibility that that woman was, indeed, Alexandra. Somehow with blue hair, with no tattoos… But Alexandra.

With a frustrated grimace, Garrus looked again at his omnitool: nothing. He ran a hand over his face and back to his fringe, feeling utterly useless and worried sick.

She was in danger. She had risked her own life to save him and she had gone back to the wolf den after. Aria would carve her up if she found out that she helped them escape and her silence was seriously concerning. 

Archangel sighed, suddenly incredulous about his own deductions. Was he fooling himself? She could not be Alex. That was a stupid thought. Why didn't she recognise him? And killing for Aria? It just sounded hard to believe. She had to be back on Earth, drinking one of those fancy cocktails on a dark den in her city…  _ Londen _ ?  _ Landon _ ? 

Unless… Unless she needed Aria’s help for something… She had run away to Omega for a reason. What was she looking for here? Obviously, her locator was not working anymore. She had found a way to trash it… What if Aria had helped her with that and now Alex owed her a favour...? Was that the reason why she was working for her?

Assuming the Shadow  _ was _ Alex...

He cursed himself aloud, halting his pacing around the room. The exposed torso of the blue-haired woman was the only thing he could partially remember, apart from her blue cobalt hair… Alexandra’s waist was striking: lean and muscular… Was the blue-haired woman’s, too? Were her breasts round and small as Alex’s were? 

Garrus grunted, both hands fisted over his forehead like if the pressure on his skull could make him recall more details of their encounter two years ago: he had only seen Alexandra naked once and he was so absorbed with the feeling of her and his own paralysing panic that he couldn’t actually recall her body that well... He didn’t know what to do to her… He didn’t know what she liked or how to work her up... She actually had got off herself, which was quite embarrassing now he thought of it. And then, the bite bit…

Well, it hadn’t been a very good first time, even if she said so. Not to his standards… But he brushed the thoughts away for now: he would redeem himself if he was able to find her.

Which led him again to think of the Shadow and that night. 

“Please, please, answer... I need to know you’re ok,” he muttered, opening the interface of his omnitool one more time: still nothing. And he had no other way to contact her. Swallowing the bitterness of the uncertainty, he prayed. “Spirits… If she’s truly Alex… Just keep her safe…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have to admit that I was very very very tempted to giving everything away on this chapter. But then I decided to hold on for a little longer. Cruel? Perhaps. But Garrus has a clear suspicion now of who she is, although he doesn't have any way to contact her or prove it unless she finds him 😱  
> Thanks for everyone following the fic and shipping this odd couple. You're truly the motivation to carry on with it! 💜💜💜


	10. marked

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning ahead: rape/no consent.

“Fuck you! Fuck!” Baring her teeth and with a primal scream full of rage, Aria T’Loak slammed her fists on the table for the second time that night. However, the motion didn’t help to ease her mood rather than to put all people around her on edge at her violent outburst. 

Six virtual screens showing different cameras of the AfterLife blinked in the small room where the security footage was kept. The cold tingly blue of the screen colours dyed the grey walls in a surrealistic electric tone, more similar than being at the bottom of the sea. No one reviewed the CCTV in real-time, but the advanced software was able to detect trespassers, trouble makers, personas non-grata and more and notify everything to the many security guards that walked every floor of the AfterLife. 

But it seemed that Aria might need to think about her procedures after what happened that night.

Just some hours ago, his personal drug dealer had been killed in the VIP restrooms of her own club, and one of her personal assistants witnessed it. Still on the middle of her birthday party, quite high and, also, pissed off about the inconvenience, Aria had sent a squat of her men to finish the turian in the black suit and mask and the batarian dressing blue and red who seemed guilty of the misdeed with discretion into a crowded up to the hilt AfterLife. Meanwhile, she secretly hoped that no one under her command or payroll had been so stupid to allow the own Archangel free entrance into her private birthday party. 

Everything had been handled with absolute discretion: her men had followed the guys until they left the club, where a squad of her security men waited for them to capture them alive. But it seemed that luck was not in her favour that night: Archangel and his companion escaped thanks to a mysterious _someone’s_ help. _Someone_ who had been cloaked in the shadows during their strike. _Someone_ who had been in the club the whole time, teaming up with him. _Someone_ who had knocked down the bouncer in her club to step outside and help the damned Archangel. And, after the mischief, they came back in as if nothing happened.

That _someone_ whose face, figure or actions were not visible in the outside camera because that same damned _someone_ knew Aria’s CCTV that well that they had managed to be off-camera the whole time. 

The only image Aria had for now: a humanoid figure wrapped from head to toe into a turian cape. 

“Shit, there must be something… Something else…” the asari muttered, her eyes wide open, reddened and flickering swiftly over the six screens that showed different angles of the AfterLife ground floor in a constant loop. She was drunk and high on red sand, and she was having a lot of wild fun until that crap happened. And Aria didn’t like unexpected. Even less in her own house. “I need to see the footage again. Ground floor. The dance floor at the time when Archangel went outside.” She looked over her shoulder towards her men behind her. “You all, look at the video. Find something.”

The poor human in charge of the controllers rewound the digital recording with a terrified expression, avoiding eye contact with the out of her wits queen of Omega.

“Aria, what are we looking for?” one of his security guards asked with a slight shake in his voice. 

She muttered a curse under her breath, wondering why she had to be surrounded by idiots. “Anything suspicious. Whatever!” the asari groaned, not trying to contain her lack of patience.

Several minutes happened, the recording being played four times. Aria kept staring at it with maddening eyes. “There! There! Stop!! That exact moment… Play it slow,” she barked, focusing on the movements of all the people in camera: quite a difficult task considering her state. Until out of nowhere, her _someone_ grabbed a large cape from the back of a chair.

Aria scoffed and sat on the office chair, leaning over the screen that showed the deed. “Rewind three seconds. Play it again,” she ordered, seriously considering having another line of red sand to play the champagne down. But she brushed the idea away: she was already pissed off enough. 

Her human lackey did as she ordered and stopped the video right on the frame where a female human figure with her face hidden under a mask leaned discreetly forwards and borrowed the turian cape from his owner’s stool. Her action was imperceptible for anyone who was not specifically looking for it and it could have been easily missed in the tide of bodies, dancing and mingling around in the club. 

Aria’s expression hardened, her eyes narrowed and her brow sunk on her face: _she_ was her _someone_. The silence grew in the room at the same pace her fury began to blaze, wild and burning. The queen of Omega got even closer to the flat screen, analysing what she saw, studying the features of the human that hid under the white mask, also discerning a green… or perhaps cobalt shoulder-length wig. 

“Cross her features with the data of the guests. All of them,” she urged, a suspicion growing in her guts. It was a good thing that her bouncers scanned everyone’s faces before entering the club. ”Have you done this to the turian and the batarian already?” she shouted at the salarian who was in charge of the guest lists.

“Yes… Yes! The names on the invitations were Mr Wolf and Mr Tarantino. It didn’t seem to match anyone in Omega. Fake names…”

“Mhm… Someone bought those tickets for them. I want to know who…”

The silence stretched tensely while the alien faces rushed on the laptop screen, comparing features with the poor footage image. 

Aria had a gut feeling about it. She had had it for a little while already. But she needed proof.

And, right then, the flickering of features stopped, showing a human female, blue hair, blue lips and white mask on the screen. The name shown was the same one she had let her chose two years ago when she saved her life and Aria gave her a new identity to hide from the Alliance and to work for her.

If her fury was maddening before, it was nothing compared to the uncontrolled way it bubbled in her body then. “Fucking ungrateful bitch… I knew it!” From out of nowhere, she cackled a laugh, startling everyone around her. 

Then, she shook her head with a grave expression, clicking her tongue several times, like still not believing what she saw.

And, finally, she growled in rage and slammed her fists on the table for the third and last time that night.

No one understood the nature of her outburst: no one but herself. 

In the middle of her blind poisoning hatred, she left the quarters in a rush of anger and strode back to her VIP area, cursing loudly on her way there. She kicked the stool at the entrance and burst in like a tornado would do, catching everyone’s attention with a scream. “All of you, get the fuck out!” she roared.

Some of the most important guests were still hanging out there, having sex, doing drugs, drinking… The regular stuff. Even if the official party had finished 3 hours ago and the AfterLife was empty already. 

Foreseeing the storm coming, no one complained at her order, her private zone being cleared out in less than a minute. Aria sat on her usual place on the main sofa, righteously alone, tiredly running a hand over her face: she was still high. Very high.

“Patriarch, stay,” she ordered at the krogan, who just froze next to the door, scarily looking at her. 

“As you wish, Aria… Is there anything you want…?” he mumbled, his voice slightly trembly with his own fear.

The time built up around them without an answer, Aria just looking blankly at the table with lines of red sand and several bottles of champagne were still half done. Until she decided to speak. “If you disclose anything of what I’m about to tell you, I will kill you painfully, understood?”

The krogan gulped thickly but nodded his head. What else could he do?

Sighing loudly, Aria began. “The Shadow is working with Archangel.”

“Oh…” Patriarch said, not knowing well what his opinion should be.

“I want to kill her slowly. I want to skin her alive and make her suffer. I want her to beg for her life… That fucking ungrateful bitch lied to me. She’s been working with him. And she lied to me! I want her red-haired head on that fucking wall and I want it done tonight!” she barked, the level of her speech growing at the same time her own rage was.

As a way out to her outburst, and probably to avoid her biotics blasting around herself with mighty destruction, Aria stood and paced the area, muttering curses to herself. After a few minutes of absorption - and awkward and risky silence for Patriarch - she started to share her thoughts. “Do you know what I don’t truly understand…? Why did she put herself on such a stupidly avoidable risk? Why would she rather be discovered than had me kill him? Mhmm… That’s actually quite an interesting line of thought. Such a reckless decision to take, considering how desperately she was on gaining back her liberty, serving me as a good pet...” Until she chuckled and her laugh was as sharp as steel. “Unless they’re shagging, of course!”

“She might just be interested in him… More things are happening between people apart from sex, you know?”

Aria tilted her head at the foreign concept that Patriarch laid on the table, her face highly sceptical. Well… She knew nothing about human feelings and emotions, but perhaps he had a point there. “You know what, old friend. I think you might be right. I knew there was a reason why I kept you alive: the wisdom of the age. “ The asari sat back on the sofa and helped herself a whole bottle of champagne, taking her time on opening it with a grave expression, highly focused on the task. After the cork popped, she offered a glass to Patriarch, who saved the space between them with cautiousness, grabbing the glass. 

The asari relaxed her shoulders, leaning back and making herself comfortable, drinking a long sip straight from the bottle. “In other circumstances, she wouldn’t have lived to see another sunrise. But considering that Archangel might be the final trophy… I think I’ll take the long way this time: I’ll break her down until she leads me to him.” 

While fumbling with her omnitool, her smile widened, sadistic and evil, enjoying the sight of Patriarch shrinking with it. 

***

Running Omega was not an easy task. Not for the weak, that was for sure. Perhaps that was why she had grown feelingless and visceral in her responses. No one in Omega was innocent, for one or another reason, and she was not either. Her cruelty was a product of her survival instinct, and nothing else: she had to set an example with each of her actions. With each of her responses. That’s why this insult from the Shadow couldn’t go unpunished. 

Aria filled the flute glasses up to the rim like those first times when she was excited about the novelty and Alex still grateful for her help, and leaned back on the leather sofa, the beat of the music muffled thanks to the marvellous insulation in her private area. The windows pane were already dyed black and her plans, after two days, well sketched and determined in her mind. 

The Shadow. Alexandra… was the only piece that was missed from the equation. 

And, just right then, one of her security men announced her arrival. “I am waiting for her, indeed. Let her in.”

A wild smirk bloomed across her face when the human that had betrayed her stepped into her domains with no less resolution than any other day, utterly oblivious to her plans. Aria stared at her and her even breathing, certainly admiring her mettle. And, like every time before, the Shadow just stood next to the door with cautiousness, waiting for instructions. 

Aria stood with both glasses in her hands and walked purposely swinging her hips towards her. “Take your helmet off.”

Her suit was expensive and good at concealing her. All of her. She wanted to look at her in the eye, feel the tremble of her voice and smell her terror.

And Alex obeyed. Her orange hair was gathered in a bun on top of her hair, and her warm eyes were focused on her like a lioness would glare when a predator enters her territory. There were no traces of fear in them, but Aria was well aware that she was good at hiding her emotions. The asari handed out the glass to her, releasing one of her hands that went straight up to caress her hair: it was fascinating, its softness and its colour. Exotic. Mesmerising. That was the first thing that had caught her eye from her. She pulled at her hairband and the orange locks cascaded down her features, wild and lust. Full of life. 

Thanks to the close examination, Aria learnt that her breath grew shallow with her proximity and at her touch. And she also learnt that rather than irritate her, she found it arousing.

“I’ve got a mission for you, Alexandra. It has to be fulfilled before we finish our contract. Otherwise, we will have an issue...”

The human, who was taller than her, gazed down to meet her blue electric eyes with confusion. “That’s not what we agreed, Aria…” she muttered with a steady but low voice. 

The asari shrugged her shoulders, still combing her hair with her hand. “I know. But circumstances change and I need you for one more thing before letting you go. I hope you’re amenable to it, although there’s nothing to agree: you have to do it.”

Alex took a deep breath in, her chest rising visibly, somehow shaky, but didn’t talk. So Aria carried on. “I want you to bring me Archangel’s head. Once you’re done with it, you’ll be free.”

And, for a split second, the asari saw in her amber eyes the raw panic that her words brought, and her brief reaction provoked her joy. Pure, crystalline and sparkly joy. 

Savouring the moment, Aria smoothed her hand over her cheek, her neck and the side of her torso, reaching her hip, a smug cruel smile blooming on her lips. “Will you do that, Alexandra? Will you kill him for me?”

The human didn’t reply: not that she was expecting her to do so. Taking in a sharp breath, the nod of her head was everything but convincing when she finally reacted at her order. 

Aria stepped back, grabbed her hand and guided her to the sofa, sitting next to her. By the confused and sheepishly expression of her face, Aria knew that had dented her determination: that she was submitted to her will. 

But she was not done with her. Not yet. 

Her plans were far more twisted than just killing him. Or her. 

The asari put both glasses away before straddling her lap, tilting her head up from her chin and kissing her fiercely. 

Alex sucked a breath in through her nose but didn’t react at all: she didn’t return her kiss or didn’t pull away, either. She just did nothing. Not until Aria lowered her attentions to her neck and started to unzip her armour, granting her access further down her body. 

Her hand gripped at her wrist hardly, halting her doing. “Stop…” the human muttered in a tense whisper, her whole body stiff, apprehension winding up in every muscle. 

But Aria didn’t. She jerked her hand free with a manic grin and smothered the collar of her armour open, exposing her shoulders. There were no turian marks there, which was a surprise, but that didn’t mean she was innocent: it only said she hadn’t fucked him. Yet. 

Aria immobilized her with her biotics and Alex fought against it, eyes open in surprise, or perhaps fear. It was not the first time they played that game: to bind each other. Although this time it wouldn’t be a game. Aria fisted her hair roughly and tugged, tilting her head to the right and exposing the white column of her neck to her. And Alex moaned at the motion: not a pleasurable moan but a miserable one. There were some puncture marks there that she’d never seen before. Old ones, from a former turian partner? Someone she left behind in the Alliance, perhaps? 

Her pulse pumped fast and heavy along the vein on her neck, and her breath became sharp. And the sight of her rejection and her fear only excited Aria further. “Are you ready to embrace eternity, Alexandra?” she asked her with a smug smile curling up her lips, her arousal growing, her pupils already dilating.

The human swallowed hard, breathing through her parted lips. “Please, no…”

She begged her to stop once again. 

Aria didn’t. 

Melding was never an exact science: despite the control Aria T’Loak had over Omega, she couldn’t control how to read experiences or feelings from her partners. Once their nervous systems were connected, sharing the electric impulses, the pleasure and the recollection began. The images came disorganised and randomly: a stream of memories that poured over her like a waterfall. But she found nothing useful on them rather than a very young Alexandra, her parents perhaps, another asari, military training, a C-Sec clash in the Citadel. 

It was not the first time they embraced together, but the last time it had been nearly two years ago. Willingly. Now things were quite different. However, Alexandra didn’t give away any thoughts about Omega: nothing she could use against her at all. Nothing she could use in finding Archangel’s whereabouts.

A moan of pleasure contorted her expression, purple lips parted with uneven breaths, growing shallow and faster. She knew she was not far from her climax, unlike the human, who was still resisting her melding with all her soul and might. 

But that was what she needed and what she wanted: to break her.

When she was about to burst in pleasure, with her hand still fisting her hair and tilting her head sideways, Aria lowered her lips to her neck and kissed her, inhaling her scent deeply: salty and flowery with a pinch of that sweet spice humans appreciate… Vanilla? 

She smelled like something she definitely would eat. 

Her climax unleashed from the centre of her spinal cord and washed over her, Alex mirroring her pleasure over their connected nervous systems. 

It was then when Aria T’Loak bit her as hard as a turian partner would do, marking Alexandra as hers. 

Her property. Her subject. Her possession.

Her amber eyes were unfocused, staring at the floor when the blackened meld began to fade from them, and she trembled: a beautiful picture of vulnerability. And Aria wondered how much she would endure before giving up. Before giving Archangel up.

The metallic taste of her blood persisted on her tongue and the asari savoured it while she analysed with a sadistic smirk the stain of crimson that her teeth mark was over the alabaster of her ravished skin.

Cleaning the dripping red liquid from the corner of her mouth with the back of her hand, Aria stood back to her feet. Then, she undid the binding and grabbed the champagne glass, drinking it up to the bottom, emitting a satisfied sigh when she finished it. Aware of the silence behind her, she turned around to find Alex giving her a venomous glare, her armour already zipped up, hiding her mark with embarrassment. Her hands were fisting the leathery fabric of the sofa, faintly glimmering in purple, and the asari knew she was having a bad time repressing her impulses. 

Aria was fully aware that the human was powerful: one of the most potent biotics within humanity. But she also knew that Alex wouldn’t be that stupid of killing her in her domains. 

With the lightest tone she was able to pull out from her chest and a terrifying smirk on her violet lips, Aria spoke. “You can go now. But I might require your services further on this week.” 

The human kept glaring at her, understanding enough of her intentions. And, with a growing triumphant feeling in her chest, the asari just left the room, leaving Alexandra alone with her fury and her miserable prospect.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tough chapter to sketch and even more to write. It's the first time I write something like this and it has actually been quite difficult. Alex's worst nightmares becoming true.  
> I'm going through a rough creative patch at the moment: I have plenty of ideas that I cannot put into paper properly. Neither in Spanish or English, which is absolutely frustrating! *cries in distress* Sorry to vent this with you, guys -.-'  
> Thanks for your comments - they are really really appreciated. You cannot imagine how much!!!! <3


	11. don't be a strange

_ I need your help. _

Garrus’ omnitool beeped in the middle of the night, announcing an email, and his heart skipped a beat once he recognized the blog’s logo. A message. A message from her, after five weeks of knowing nothing. He just couldn’t believe she had finally come back to him.

Giving up on her was never an option, but that same week he got to know thanks to a merc that the Shadow was still striking, targeting for Aria. So, she was alive. Also meaning that she must have had a good reason to cut off any communication with him.

Perhaps her situation was just too dangerous to keep up with their truce?

The idea of her being Alex had lost credibility as the days went by: there must have been a simpler explanation for sure. Sadly, he never got the chance to verify the truth. 

He might have a second chance now.

The vigilante sat up on the bed and ran a nervous hand over his face, brushing the remains of his sleep away. With something similar to excitement and relief at knowing she was alright and finally asking for help, he hesitated what to reply. However, his confidence was dented after her long period of quietness and it took him several minutes to decide what would be appropriate to say.

_ It’s been a long time. Are you safe?  _

Her reply came nearly immediately. 

_ My situation has been compromised.  _

Garrus furrowed his brow plates: he was right. She was in danger. However, his inner C-Sec officer voice warned him about her return. Many threats against him and his men flared suddenly in his mind. Was she the real Shadow? Was she trying to lure him into a trap? Why didn't she try to communicate before? Were their communications tapped?

With a terrible pile of questions and no answers in sight, and the heavy weight of mistrust again over his shoulders, his precaution forbade him on typing anything else. 

The time went by while he stared at the orange screen, his blue eyes blankly looking at her message without seeing it, wondering what the correct call was. And, before he could make up his mind, he received another text.

_ I’ve been trying to avoid getting you involved, but I don’t know what else to do.  _

That sounded… Serious. And her tone had nothing to do with the usual informality in their previous interactions. She didn’t want him to get involved… Why?

Without any further thinking, he started to type. 

_ Hereford with Crewe. 1 hour.  _

Discreet location, easy escape points and no cameras. Also, easy to survey from the surrounding buildings. He’ll wait for her on a flat rooftop with his rifle, being able to know beforehand if she was setting him up. 

Her reply came back nearly immediately. 

_ I’m being followed. 2. I won’t be able to lose them. _

Well, that was straightforward, indeed. The idea of an ambush faded away: she had just confessed she would bring a ‘plus 2’ to the meeting. It seemed more reasonable that all those months keeping secrets from Aria were finally catching up with her. Archangel started to believe that she was really in trouble and he was more than willing to help.

_ Point me in the right direction once you’re there and leave them to me.  _

It took her longer this time to receive the answer. 

_ Ok. 1 hour. _

The bright light of the omnitool disappeared and his bedroom sank back in darkness. Archangel inhaled deeply and sat on the edge of the bed, wondering if perhaps calling Vortash or Sidonis was a good idea. Considering the uncertain situation the Shadow was pulling him in, the thought was dismissed immediately: it was 2 in the morning and he was sure that they both would hit the roof with his decision.  _ Insane _ would be the softest word they would call him for sure. So, utterly determined but still with an inner voice that whispered in the back of his mind that he was running straight into a trap, he stood up and got his sniper rifle out from the wardrobe.

***

Whatever he was trying to achieve up on that roof, it had nothing to do with saving the world anymore but saving her. An ally. His decision of helping her was not objective, but dangerous and clearly reckless. Any of his teammates would have told him he was wrong and crazy and they might have been right. 

But he had a gut feeling, and proof that backed him up. 

He needed to know. He wanted to know if, after all that happened, after all that time, she was Alex.

And, even if she was not, she was desperately asking for his help. How could he deny that to her?

The flat roof’s floor was cold and, not surprisingly, hard as hell when he laid down on his stomach, the barrel of his sniper carefully set over the edge of the building. Archangel shivered, wondering how some alien species were able to deal with that night freezing temperature of Omega without trouble. Like batarians or asari. He knew that salarians and humans were also sensitive to low temperatures, but it was not as bad as turians were in the cold for sure.

Suddenly he realized how ridiculous his line of thought was and the turian scolded himself for his distraction, looking back into the telescopic sight. 

Movement on the right alley: a black figure stalking around the meeting point.

He blinked a couple of times and rolled his shoulders, trying to ease some of the tension on them before focusing his eyes again. 

The figure came to light after a couple of minutes: it was her.

The Shadow leapt quietly onto a pile of crates and, from there, got to the emergency stairs of the building across the street from his position. And just sat down, legs crossed and folded under her body in that strange way he had seen Alex do many times before in his apartment. She waited, sweeping the whole area from time to time in research of something.

Archangel waited too, his eyes focused on her figure through the rifle’s sight. After having seen her in the AfterLife, so real and close, that situation with both of them back on their full armours, backed up by their anonymity seemed surreal and far less appealing. 

A muffled sound of murmurs came from the perpendicular street in the quietness of the night. Immediately after, she signed with her hand in that useful shared military language that all the species in the Milky Way had decided to share. 

Three enemies. Armed. 200 steps. 

Then, pointed to the street on her left where the voices came from.

In his next breath, Archangel repositioned the rifle towards that direction and refocused his aim. 

_ Jackpot. _

Two turians and a batarian, no merc colours on sight but all dressed grey and black armours: Aria’s private security. 

The vigilante relaxed his neck again and swallowed, focusing and stabilizing his pulse. 

_ Breath in. Aim. Shoot. Aim. Shoot. Breath out.  _

Both turians dropped dead on the ground in a matter of seconds before they knew what was going on.

But it was the batarian’s lucky day: the guy took cover behind a container and Archangel lost visual on him. “Shit…” he hissed, following his hiding place through the telescopic sight, without results. 

But the bloody batarian didn’t move an inch. 

At least, not until the Shadow appeared from out of nowhere and threw a shockwave at him, throwing him up in the air like a rag doll. 

Archangel followed his trajectory with his rifle and shot. 

With a wet sound, the batarian dropped dead on the cold ground.

The Shadow looked up at the adjacent buildings, scanning for his whereabouts, trying to work out where his bullets had come from. Giving up on finding him, she made a mocked military salute with her hand before getting back to the initial position at the street junction.

Well, that was more of the Shadow the turian was used to deal with and, after some minute of patiently waiting for more enemies, he reckoned that the situation didn’t look like a trap. So, Archangel holstered the rifle and got to the street with caution, her borrowed Phalanx tightly gripped in his hand while going down the stairs. The emergency door swung open with a light push and, before he could realize, he was on the street, right in front of her. 

At that moment, the word ‘relief’ grew a new meaning to him.

They studied each other in silence for a split second before she decided to break it. “Thank you… For meeting me.”

“I offered my help and I’m glad you finally decided to accept.”

The Shadow just nodded her head and silence fell upon them again. Now they finally were face to face, Garrus didn’t know exactly how to address the topic of his suspicions - was she Alex? - so he just focused on what he could actually do to help. “What happened that night? Why you didn’t reply?”

Her voice was as metallic as always, neutral and empty despite their proximity. “I made that choice for protection. That night I exposed myself rashly and I was expecting her to kill me immediately, but she did not. It made me think that perhaps my identity had gone unnoticed...” She quietened and Archangel doubted if he should ask or give her some time to carry on with her experience. “It turned out that I was wrong.”

“How come?” 

Her hesitation was crystal clear before she spoke again. “She had ordered me to kill you, otherwise, my debt will never be settled…” 

His whole body tensed at her confession, ready to attack for his life if it was necessary. And she must have noticed because she rushed to add. “But I won’t do it. I… It didn’t even cross my mind.”

Garrus relaxed slightly. That was… well, a mixture of good and no good news at all. He was growing kind of used to Omega hostility towards his  _ persona _ but having  _ her _ after himself… He was not sure that he would have been able to escape. “Well… Appreciated. I suppose we’ll have to figure all this out. Still, she might not know about you…” he inquired, hopeful.

There was a noticeable pessimism in the way her shoulders slumped down before she replied. “That’s not all… She knows. Trust me...”

Her reticence to speak further about whatever happened during those weeks was somehow alarming and Archangel frowned, somewhere in between curious and cautious. But, if they were to have an agreement, it couldn’t be just based on half trues and omissions. “Shadow… I do really want to help you and I will respect the fact that you don’t want to talk about it. But I need to know that I can trust you. That this is not some sort of trick...”

The silence stretched uncomfortably between them both while she considered until she finally nodded her agreement. Her words weighed when she spoke, reluctant. “Let’s get out of here and I tell you whatever you want to know.”

Well, fair enough. 

“My aircar is on the main street. If you come with me, run away, she’ll know. Are you sure of this?”

She nodded again without words and Garrus started walking towards the direction he’d pointed at with the female striding next to him within arm’s length. 

There was no need to fill in their silence but he just couldn’t help it, his curiosity denting his sanity. At that point, he wanted to know. He needed to know. “I know you’re not an asari,” Archangel mentioned, as casual as he was able to, although his subharmonics gave away his excitement. And because she didn’t even blink at the statement, Archangel knew his words didn’t take her by surprise. 

The Shadow just breathed deeply a couple of times before speaking softly. “No, I’m not… You’re observant, indeed...”

A strange rush of nervousness started to grow in his stomach at her confirmation. And he was bad at being nervous. “And you lied to me during that game...” Crap, he didn’t want to keep pushing into that topic. Besides, what was he reproaching her exactly? That she wanted to remain anonymous? 

However, his resentment pulled a small chuckle out of her, somehow faking indignant. “I did not… I don’t have blue hair… It was a wig.”

Her light tone threw a wave of relief through his worried-self but her confession also made his heart pound faster into his chest, his suspicions about her identity returning bright and loud in his mind.

Archangel froze on his feet and faced her. And she stopped at his halt, hesitant about what was going on. 

Time stretched around them. 

“Alexandra…?” His question was laced with incredulity, just a whisper under his breath.

The Shadow flinched at the name, her whole body language expressing her unease. Withdrawing some steps back, her hand went suddenly up in front of her, glimmering in purple, defensive.

“Who the fuck are you? How do you know…?”

That was far more confirmation than Garrus needed and a years-old weight lifted from his shoulders at her words. Ignoring her threatening attitude, he laughed quietly with honest relief, leaving her bewildered. “I need to take this damned helmet off… Spirits! I can’t believe it...” he muttered, struggling with the clasps at the back of his neck with the rifle in his hand. 

“What are you doing?” The Shadow shrieked, not following at all what he was going on. She didn’t lower her hand an inch, although the tilt of her head indicated that she was far more curious than she would admit. 

But Garrus never got to reveal who he was.

A faint sound of steps echoed in the alley right around the corner, rushed, quietness interrupted. Several people were running towards their position and a soft murmur of voices gave intelligibly orders. There were three metallic _ clacks _ and it could only mean that weapons had been cocked. 

Suddenly, being fully aware of the danger, Archangel gave up on his doing and them both exchanged glances. They stood on guard right when a group of ten of Aria’s men appeared from the perpendicular street, weapons in hand. And, before the turian and the human could exchange any further word to put up a plan, the attackers shot. 

Bullets flew around them, buzzing like furious insects, and they took cover behind one of the pillars of the building. In a synchronized choreography, they draw their weapons in unison with chunks of plaster raining over them after being shattered from the columns around them. 

“We’ll finish this conversation later,” Archangel shouted over the booming sound of the bursts. 

“Indeed…” she replied and ducked when a bullet pierced the concrete edge of the pillar, right over her head. When she spoke again, she was giving him orders in a veiled manner. “Look, I know you’re good at a distance and I’m good at close combat. I’m gonna get in there and I trust you’ll cover my back.”

Her plan would put her in a dangerous position and he was quite reticent in her getting into that sort of reckless proximity combat. But Archangel had studied her tactics for months and he was fully aware of what she was actually able to accomplish with her biotics at a short distance. And there was no doubt that the situation would require their best abilities for sure. “Ok. But don’t take unnecessary risks. I’ll cover your back. Throw them off balance and I’ll finish them.”

Another burst of bullets made them squat down. 

“That sounds like a plan to me.”

After a quick and determined nod of his head, and one last look that spoke of the many untold words between them, the Shadow activated the barrier around herself with the usual purple glimmer and charged into the group of attackers. Once she was in the middle of them, she jumped and used the pull of gravity on her behalf to unleash a massive nova that burst around her. Everything, and everyone, caught up in the blast was thrown backwards more than four meters away from the epicentre. 

When she stood in the middle of the chaos, Archangel was still trying to recover from his surprise, baffled as he was about her more-than-powerful attack. He finally shook his head and brought the sight of his Black Widow at the level of his eyes, steading his grip on it. His targets were there, scattered on the ground around the Shadow, dazed. 

Easy as cake.

_ Breath in, aim, shoot, breath out _ . 

As many times as he was able to before the rush of the battle came back to a normal speed and Alex had to charge to a different enemy to escape from the closing circle of attackers that surrounded her. She sank her omniblade in her next victim’s neck and spun around to kick a turian on his chest, pushing him back a few steps. Garrus used that small lapse of time to send a bullet through his helmet. Her next shockwave reached two of the batarians and made them fly over a crate before she had to back off and take cover behind one of those massive plant pots that seemed to be everywhere in that galaxy. But her withdrawal gave Archangel time and space enough to shoot at them both right into their heads. He also stunned the vorcha that was about to corner her, giving the Shadow time enough to slam him against the furthest wall with her powers. 

Five enemies dead, five more to go. 

The combat moved towards the adjacent street and Garrus followed it, overloading the shields of two of Aria’s men. Before he was able to put a bullet in their heads, the Shadow had already killed them both with her Phalanx. That gave Archangel the chance to move his telescopic sight towards the left and shoot the other turian when approached her from behind. However, instead of turning around to face the new attacker, she had remained oddly and unusually frozen. 

Garrus frowned, confused at her change of rhythm and stillness.

Her hand palmed the right side of her torso, right above her waist.

A thought flashed back in his mind: the guy she had just killed was holding up a gun.

There were drops of red blood on the ground around her. Ç

His heart sunk in his stomach. “Spirits!”

When she dropped onto her knees heavily, Archangel sprinted towards her position with his rifle up. The bullets from one of the two remaining men still standing ricocheted on her barrier that was, against all the odds, still active. Garrus fell upon the guy with a fierce growl, knocking him down with the butt of his gun and kicking his head until he was out. His armour stopped the bullets that the last one standing shot at him and Archangel aimed for his head and killed him.

The silenced gunfire died like an echo and the street became, once again, deadly quiet. However, it was just a matter of time that the police arrived, alerted by the more than sure terrified neighbours. 

Anxiety was a bitter taste in his mouth when he turned around and found her on the ground, laying on her back in the middle of a crimson blood puddle. 

“Shit, shit, shit, shit!” 

He kneeled next to her, evaluating her injuries: she had been shot on the right side of her torso but for some reason, the medigel in her suit hasn’t been released. He couldn’t recall for certain if there were any important organs or blood vessels in that part of human bodies but she was clearly bleeding out and he had to act. Archangel extracted a dosage of his own medigel and applied it straight into the bullet wound and she flinched in pain, curling her whole body on the ground. 

“Alexandra, I need to take you out of here. You need medical assistance. I have to take you to  Grundan Krul…” Garrus choked, thinking of the only member of his squad with medical training, his words laced with concern. He slid his hand under her body, behind her knees and around her back, scooping her up from the ground. 

Despite her delicate situation, she mumbled in a pained moan. “No… Mordin Solus…”

Archangel looked with crescent concern and impatience how she tapped something on her omnitool with trembling hands and hoped that whatever she was doing, it was important enough, considering she was dying in his arms. There were bloody fingerprints on the omnitool surface when he leaned on it to see what she had searched: a name and an address. 

“Who is this?” he enquired, nervous and strangled. The place was not precisely close to their position.

“Doctor… A friend.” She coughed slightly and then, with much effort and a pained groan, disconnected the omnitool magnets and ripped it off her arm, throwing it away. 

His brow plate sunk deep, seriously considering to ignore her request. 

The sirens of the police force reverberated loudly and dangerously closely somewhere above their heads and Archangel understood that it was his cue to disappear. 

“He better be at home…” the turian mumbled, making up his mind and running as fast as he could towards his aircar.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Angst angst and more angst. Sorry about it. No one said this would be a nice story, but a really dark one.   
> However... Mordin will be on the next chapter and that makes me really happy.   
> And I do love when Garrus actually realizes that she is Alex. Even if she doesn't know who he is yet.   
> Like always, thanks for reading guys ^^


	12. friendship?

The buzzing of the huge bee-like insects echoed in his ears and the damp heat from midday rolled over his shoulders as bliss. He loved that weather: damp, hot and sticky. His species were not really that good in the aseptic, cold and overly dry environment of Omega at all. 

The jungle opened wide, wild and lust on both his sides. It was not his origin world, but one of the secret labs investigating genophagy after the krogan population hadn’t diminished as they all expected it would do. 

And he was in charge of the project: his responsibility. The task was important, for the sake of the galaxy: he couldn’t fail.

The buzzing insect flew again close to his auditory canal and Mordin ducked his head, narrowly avoiding it. 

The responsibility was on him. Krogan were starting to grow dangerous and reckless, making the whole intergalactic balance to swing dangerously with the echoes of war. The perfect ecosystem that the galaxy was, had started to crumble with the fiasco of their first attempt to diminish their population. 

And, due to their violent and territorial behaviour, the other sapient species had had enough. 

Genophagy was necessary and all of them, except krogans of course, agreed on it. 

However, was he making the correct call?

The _ buzz _ of the fat bee came back with renovated intensity and Mordin shook his head, his hand moving to shoo it away. He barely avoided a collision with the insect and, even so, the buzzing sound was still there, far angrier and more intense. 

“ _ Well, this is annoying… _ ” he thought, his hands systematically slapping around his head in a pointless attempt to stop that irritating noise. 

The corners of his vision blurred as a bit of consciousness seeped through. 

The jungle lost definition and the colours dimmed a little despite his firm steps still taking him far away across it, following the endless path towards the research facility. 

That damned  _ buzz _ again…

Suddenly, the whole scenario folded into itself.

Mordin woke up in the cool darkness of his bedroom, disoriented. It took him a little while to understand that it was only a dream, his own conscience punishing him through his memories. However, the safety fluffiness of his mattress felt secure under his body and he relaxed just a bit. There were no jungle, no scientists, no lab and no genophage. And no bee. That was good. He could bottle his remorse up, once again.

Until the damned  _ buzz _ resounded in his auditory canal, loud and clear, and not part of a dream. 

It took him a split second to understand what was going on, recognizing, at last, the annoying sound, jumping out of the bed to answer the door ring that had been tirelessly buzzing during his sleep. “Shit… Yes?” he inquired looking at the screen, his patience utterly lost. 

“Mordin Solus?”

The salarian definitely woke up in surprise at the voice that called his name. The video doorbell showed him a turian in full blue armour that sounded distressed. The mere fact that an unknown alien was actually knocking at his door at 1 am on a Wednesday morning certainly was worrying. 

However, it was the blurred shape of a human female figure in a full black armour what truly alarmed him. “Is she…?” he muttered on the intercom, voice full of concern. 

“She’s hurt.” 

The turian sounded… desperate if he would have to guess. Anyone who had spent as many years working with turians as he had, would be able to read the subharmonics or, at least, infer them.

“Bring her in,” Mordin finally stated, leaving the sliding door open and turning around to clear up the kitchen table to use it as an improvised bed. 

Once the tall and bulky turian brought the human in, Mordin signalled towards the table to lay her here. Alexandra was limp and barely conscious in his arms and, for an instant, he thought of the worst. 

“She’s been shot on the right side of her torso… Her medigel didn’t work so I gave her mine. It stopped the bleeding for a little while… She told me to bring her to you...” the turian rushed to explain, leaving the human with infinite care over the table.

A pained whine left her lips at the motion and Mordin was somehow relieved for the fact that she was still alive. “Ale… Shadow, what the hell…?” 

The human inhaled sharply, her hand firmly set over the injury. “Bad day, doc...”

“Does he know…? Am I allowed…?”

She swallowed hard before giving him an answer. “Yes, he knows.”

The fact of being badly hurt didn’t give him the right to give away her identity, but it seemed that the turian already knew who she was. Alexandra winced and closed her eyes tightly when the salarian removed her helmet with care and the turian stirred behind him, his eyes anxiously roaming over her features. 

Even being still half asleep, one didn’t have to be a genius to infer the turian’s identity. The emblem on his arm, the details of his armour… “Archangel, I assume,” Mordin mentioned as an introduction. 

The turian nodded, confirming. Many questions piled up in Mordin’s mind, but Alex was the priority and he refocused all his attention on her. At the speed of light, the doctor took her pulse and quickly examined her whole body while mumbling to himself. “Pale, cold, shivery, perspiration on forehead… Bullet wound on the torso. Mhmmm… Liver might have been compromised. Hepatic artery too. She’s in shock. When did you apply medigel?” 

Archangel stared at him and Mordin grew a little desperate at his delayed response. “Twenty minutes ago. It stopped the bleeding for a little while, but now it’s gotten worse.”

Groaning a bit, the salarian pressed both hands over her belly, pushing in slightly, and she moaned and writhed. “Good, but not good. Internal bleeding most likeable. There’s no exit hole. Bullet must be removed.”

“I think I’m gonna pass out, Mordin…” she muttered, breathing hard.

And, then, a very curious thing happened. 

Archangel gazed at him at her words and took his helmet off. Mordin noticed how Alex’s eyes went wide in awe for a parted second and opened her mouth to say something. But the words never left her lips. Her eyes unfocused and she passed out, probably for the best. 

With uncertainty growing about what was exactly going on there, Mordin verified her pulse. Weak, but alive. He would have to enquire about them both later, once she was safe. The salarian sprayed his surgical instruments with antiseptic and retrieved his ultrasound scan. “Will she be alright?” the turian said, anxiety and fear clearly thrumming in his subharmonics.

“Most likely. Humans are strong, even if they don’t look like it. High recovery speed.” The doctor set all the instruments in place and halted for a split second to face the turian. “I need your help with her clothing, please.”

Archangel exhaled shakily and approached the table. He was young, the same age as Alexandra perhaps. Handsome factions, long fringe, striking blue eyes…. Not quite what Mordin was expecting of him at all.

With settled fingers, the salarian zipped down her armour and pulled it down her shoulders. And Mordin had to stop himself from gasping at the sight of her skin.

Biting marks in different healing stages peppered her neck and shoulders and Mordin inferred they were asari because of their shape and size. Medigel had been applied to them in order to accelerate the healing, but scarring had also been left behind. 

The salarian frowned with concern, examining the freshest wound. He couldn’t think of any mating marks and he was pretty sure that they didn’t belong to any ritual he knew. Moreover, they looked just sadistic, and he wondered what the hell had happened during those weeks where Alex hadn’t been in touch at all. 

Archangel stepped closer on his left and looked more than troubled at the grotesque sight of her. 

“Well, one thing at the time...” Mordin muttered under his breath, both to the turian and himself. 

Once her armour was off, he started an IV with fluids and anaesthesia on her right arm and set the scanner on. Then, he examined the bullet wound on her abdomen. “Not too bad… Nothing that medigel could not solve. Bullet has to be extracted first, though.” And, with an automatic movement, he lowered his augmentation glasses down, washed the blood with the saline solution and got ready for the first incision.

“Do you need my help, for anything?” the turian asked, his voice shaky and looking rather pale. 

It was clear to Mordin that he was not really used to dealing with this sort of medical stuff. “Perhaps… But I’ll be mostly alright. I’ll tell you if I need help,” Mordin said while cutting open the still fresh wound barely healed by the medigel. Then, he grabbed the surgical scissors, cold in his fingers, and sank them into her body in the research of the missing bullet, following its location through the scanner.

Archangel sat on a chair, his eyes fixed on the procedure but looking even paler than before.

“Aha! There you are…” the salarian exclaimed with glee after a little while, pulling the bullet out. It made a metallic  _ clunk _ when he dropped it into the bowl and it sounded far too loud in the quietness of his house. 

After cleaning the wound with an antiseptic solution, Mordin applied more medigel, both on the inside and the outside of her injury. He finally grinned proudly when the wound stopped bleeding. 

Now he could focus on seating his curiosity and figure out what was going on there. His eyes darted towards the concerned turian that was sitting on his sofa. His clear and genuine worry was too much for an injured squad mate and Mordin wondered what the nature of their relationship was. “Archangel… She’ll be fine by tomorrow. Do you fancy a beer?” 

The turian gazed up at him like waking up from a nightmare and, by the time it took him to reply, Mordin was not sure if he had understood his offer. 

“Y… Yes, I suppose.”

“Good… There’re many things unanswered. We need to talk.”

There was a tense quietness while Mordin washed his hands thoroughly and pulled the dextro and levo beers out of the fridge. The turian still gave him some distrustful glances at his motions before he made his way back to the dining room to sit across from him on the other sofa. 

Mordin offered him the bottle that the turian accepted with mettle. Although the constant and staccato tapping of his other hand’s talons gave away his unease.

“Don’t worry. She’ll be fine. This is not the first time,” Mordin explained, trying to play things down a bit. “So… Archangel… A pleasure to finally meet you.”

“I wish I could say the same, doctor Solus…”

Mordin snickered at his answer. “You can call me Mordin.” He had a long sip of his beer, trying to organize the parts of the story that he knew in order to clarify what he was missing: asking the correct questions was paramount. “I was aware of you two working together but, how do you know who she is?”

Archangel exhaled slowly and leaned back on the sofa. He looked exhausted but willing to share whatever he knew to put all the pieces of the story together. “The AfterLife mission, five weeks ago… She saved me and… Well, I discovered she was human. It’s a long story, but we know each other from far before.”

Clearly the turian was being careful and didn’t want to slip any sensitive information about her. “Has she told you about her previous life in the military? In the Citadel?” Archangel asked.

“Yes, she has, indeed.” Mordin narrowed his eyes, all his observational and deductive skills brought into play to analyze the turian in front of him. “You’re obviously no Alliance chap but you’ve clearly worked with humans before… You were based in the Citadel. C-Sec perhaps? That’s common ground for turians. Why you ended up here is a mystery... You’re overly concerned about her life. A level of worry that you would not have for a mere new squadmate. There’s more. You say you knew her from before. You clearly care for her.” Mordin stopped himself at the turian’s suddenly bewildered face. Taking a deep breath after the blurted out speech, the salarian leaned forwards to examine Archangel’s clan marks thoroughly, with suspicion and a hint of recognition in the back of his mind. “No… You cannot be him… Are you? Huge coincidence...”

The turian shifted uncomfortably at his staring. “We were…  _ friends _ in the Citadel.”

Mordin smirked and shook his head at his explanation. “That’s not what she told me.”

A dark blue shade crept up on Archangel’s neck and the turian cleared his throat, clearly uncomfortably. “And… what did she tell you?”

But Mordin understood that it was not his responsibility to explain further. “Not my task to disclose. When did she know who you are? Is that why she came to you for help?”

A shook of his head denied the option. “I don’t think she knows who I am… I haven’t had the chance...”

“Ahm! Interesting… And, even so, she sought for your help… I am surprised she didn’t tell me.” He didn’t feel left out. Obviously, Alex was just trying to keep him safe.

“Perhaps she didn’t want to get you involved with whatever was going on…” the turian said, hitting the bull's eye. “How did she…? How did she end up working for Aria?”

Mordin shook his head again and turned his lips into a thinner line. “It’s out of my jurisdiction to tell you that as well. You’ll have to ask her once she wakes up.” 

The turian sighed, looking defeated, and leaned forwards, his elbows resting on his knees. Mordin observed with curiosity how his blue eyes lingered from time to time over her body and his gesture hardened, his mandible plates fluttering with dejection. “Those marks…”

The salarian blinked his eyes, both the protective membrane and the actual eyelids in an uncomfortable gesture. It seemed that it was time to face the elephant in the room. “They’re bite marks. Asari. Aria’s is my best guess.”

“Yes, but why? What’s the point of it?” Mordin perceived a clear hint of guiltiness in his voice.

“Alexandra called me after your AfterLife mission. She was… concerned about the outcome. She was sure that Aria knew who she was and that she’d been helping you. We discarded the option after some days of quietness. But we were obviously wrong…” Regret clambered up Mordin’s throat in a bitter taste. “I was wrong.”

“She came to me yesterday. Told me that Aria asked her to kill me. That she needed my help,” Archangel explained absently.

“If she knew about you two working together, she might have thought you two were involved. I cannot think of a more bizarre situation than asking her to kill you. Marking her was a statement of property. To punish you both. Typical Aria T’Loak.”

“Shit… We’re not involved… We just worked together,” Archangel said, and Mordin thought who he was trying to convince of it. “Aria’s insane. You think she raped her?” the words left his mouth in a shaky breath, his hatred that thick that he was able to feel it clearly in the undertones of his subvocals.

The salarian sighed and looked at the human who laid peacefully on his table. If that was true, her wounds might be far deeper than the couple of shot injuries that he had already mended. “Likely. But I don’t know. Humans are resilient. She might be fragile. She might not… Wait until she wakes up.”

Some quick nods settled the turian’s concern but there was another more urgent issue that they would have to work out, for her safety. “She had fled with you… Aria must be fully aware of your  _ team up _ . She’ll look for both of you. Put a bounty on your heads. She can stay here for now, but we need a plan.”

Archangel nodded, determined. And it seemed that he had already thought of it. “She can come with me once she’s recovered. I’ll keep her safe until things calm down a bit… For now, we’ll need clothes and a new armour.”

“And probably some food. I don’t have much human levo stuff here… I can sort all this out for you. Let me message my assistant.”

  
  


Archangel sighed while Mordin tinkered with his omnitool. Gazing up, the salarian saw how the turian stood up and padded towards the human. Hesitantly, he moved his talon to brush a lock of her hair, but stopped midway, as if he was terrified of breaking her further with his touch. He just stared at her for several minutes, his expression impossible to read.

“Can you carry her to the bed? She’ll be far better there than on the table for sure… First on the left,” Mordin requested in front of his stillness once the important message was sent.

The prospectus of duty seemed to bring Archangel back to the present. With extreme care, the turian wrapped an arm around her back and knees and lifted her with no effort while Mordin followed them with the IV bag. And, with the same delicacy, the turian left her in the bed. 

How protective the ruthless Omega vigilante had turned out to be was actually a surprise. The salarian didn’t know what he had expected exactly, but the pre-casted idea of a merciless hardhearted turian that fought implacably for what was right, killing without hesitation whoever got into his way, lost definition in his mind. 

At the end of the day, he and Alexandra had begun as enemies, and now…

Having a quick last glance at the dark bedroom where both Shadow and Archangel remained, Mordin stepped towards the door. Not that he was eavesdropping, but the turian’s words under his breath didn’t leave any doubt that their story was not just based in Omega, after all.

“I thought I’d never find you again…” he whispered quietly, shaky talons finally determined in moving that orange strand away from her forehead. His touch was subtle, featherlike, clearly trying not to wake her up. 

And Mordin acknowledged then that perhaps  _ friendship _ was not the most accurate word to define the nature of their relationship. 


	13. all this time...

Aria T’Loak sighed and leaned back on her sofa, her glare over the turian in front of her, piercing harsh and frozen cold. One of those glares that could kill. 

The guy squirmed uncomfortably in front of her tare. “We were definitely not expecting the set up, Aria. I do apologize. We thought she was just targeting someone under your command but...”

“So she lured you into a trap…” the asari spoke in a flat tone.

“Yes! That’s exactly what happened.”

Another tired sigh left her lips before Aria clicked her tongue, shaking her head, and said with a paternalistic tone. “Poor you, little thing… 13 of yours - and mine - best men lost in a single quarrel… How many there were on the other side?”

The turian shivered at the caustic words, hesitant to give her a reply. “Just Archangel…” he muttered under his breath.

“Come again? Louder…”

He cleared his throat uncomfortably. “Just Archangel, Aria. But it was a clear ambush.”

The asari deeply breathed in and out, examining the embarrassed and terrified turian for a while. The silence grew thick and dangerous, like the air right before an electric storm.

“Just Archangel… And Shadow…” she muttered with a grin.

Next time she spoke, her voice had turned into a growl. “Just the fucking Archangel and Shadow… And you just let them go…”

Her eyes glimmered with a dark glow when she stood up, one hand held out in front of herself.

The next thing the turian knew is that he was pinned in the air, blue biotics flashing around him, binding him. There was a pressure around his neck that made it difficult to breathe. 

“They ambushed us… We did not expect..” he managed in between laboured breaths.

“Shut. The fuck. Up.” Aria roared, intensifying the pressure over his throat without wincing and the man whimpered, his neck turning bright blue. “You only had two tasks: follow her and kill them when they met. You shoould have been prepared for a set up: you had all my resources and my men for it. And you let them go.”

With a light flicker of her fingers, she increased the force she was applying onto his neck, blocking his windpipe. By the way the man kicked his legs, desperate, Aria was perfectly aware that he could not breathe. But she didn’t care. He was better dead. He was useless. She could not do with incompetents in her lines. And it had been a while since she asphyxiated someone to death, to be honest. She was actually quite enjoying it.

“We found Erash…”

His voice was a tiny when he muttered the words under his choked breath, and Aria doubted she had properly understood. She loosened her grip on his throat. “Where? And why might that make up for your uselessness?”

He was turning a lovely shade of dark blue already, eyes open and glazed, mandibles unhinged and gasping for air that could not pass through his throat. “Makona residential district… She’s with another turian… His armour… Not Archangel… but in his squad!”

Aria frowned thoutfully, considering the new information revealed. With an interested  _ hum _ , she retrieved her biotics, letting the turian drop on the floor with a loud thump. He coughed and reached for his pained neck while the asari sat back on the sofa with a smug expression on her face. When he managed to scramble onto a sitting position, he finally dared to look at her, sheepishly. 

“I’ve been five seconds away from breaking your neck. I won’t tolerate any more mistakes. Bring them both here, Erash and the other one, and get Archangel whereabouts out from them. They’re spendable: I don’t care what you do to them. But I want Archangel and I want Shadow, is that clear?”

With a swift nod of his head, the turian confirmed, still holding his neck. 

She grabbed her datapad again and leaned back, utterly ignoring him. “Now, go before I kill you for real.”

***

There was a subtle background sound in her ears: quiet breathing. Even and deep for some strange reason, it made her feel safe. She was bone-tired but sleep seemed to have definitely abandoned her. Listening to her body, she felt the blunt sting of a barely healed injury on her torso, on the right side, right under her ribs. It was not the first time she’d been shot and she recognized the signals of such a characteristic wound. The night before was blurred in her mind, but Alex perfectly recalled being taken to Mordin’s house. In fact, she must still be there for sure. She breathed deeply a couple of times, using her diaphragm. Everything seemed to be in place, as much as it could be, and the pain would subside during the next hours for sure. 

Resting was the only thing she needed.

But, suddenly, a blurred image from last night, right before she passed out, rushed into her mind. Alex opened her eyes in bewilderment, staring at the white ceiling of the doctor’s house. As she frowned puzzled, her pulse accelerated and her breath hitched. 

_ He _ … Archangel...

That could not be possible. It just could not be.

Who was in the room with her?

She propped herself onto her elbows with a quiet moan, scanning the guest’s bedroom in the darkness until she found a bulky shape deeply asleep on a chair, legs fully stretched and head resting on the wall in a very uncomfortable position. Too dark to discern anything apart from the fact that he was turian and he was not wearing his armour anymore.

Anticipation built up and she was not sure anymore if she should trust her memories or not. She must have made everything up. The blood loss and all that stuff.

Even so, she dared to ask.

“Garrus?”

Her voice was a tiny incredulous whisper, not louder than a breath. And it made the turian stir, folding his legs and sitting up on the chair while rubbing his neck with a pained groan. 

Then, his eyes met hers in the darkness and a lump started to grow in her throat with the recognition of his features. 

Alex was not sure if she wanted to cry, to laugh, to scream or to kiss him. She was furiously mad, relieved gobsmacked and pleased, all at the same time, incredulity growing with every second gone by.

So she just did nothing but swearing loudly, still not believing her own eyes. “For fuck’s sake, Garrus. What the fuck?”

The turian chuckled and his subharmonics rolled over her skin with a warming feeling. “I’m glad to see, with all that swearing, that you’re feeling better.”

She couldn’t find anything to say, not because she didn’t want to but because her mouth was refusing to form any words at all, as well as her brain was. In the end, she just leaned back on the bed and covered her eyes with her hands, waiting to wake up from her, for sure, still a dream.

However, it was not a dream. He turned the light on - she perceived it behind her closed eyes. His shape didn’t fade and his voice didn’t stop whispering things she was not on the correct mind set-up to understand. Alex only opened her eyes again when he got quiet and she felt him right next to the bed, concernedly looking at her. 

“I know this is a lot to take in but we’ll find a way out.”

Alex cracked an eye open and looked at him through her fingers. She missed all he had said, except the fact that he was tenderly looking at her with his striking blue eyes.

“You are Archangel.” Her voice was still an incredulous whisper. Not that she couldn’t believe it. It was just, far-fetched. A too unlikely possibility.

He cocked a brow plate. “Erm… Yes.”

“All this time…”

He shrugged slightly, his expression, a bit amused. “All this time. I suppose I had some more time to take this in than you… Although I still can’t believe it...”

Garrus was still talking but she didn’t care. Alex scrambled to her knees in a rush without paying attention to the stabbing pain on her rigcage, and shoved her arms around his neck, pulling him down in a tight hug. And Garrus emitted a surprised  _ hum _ , his hands stuck on the sides of his body until he decided to wrap them delicately around her bare torso.

She just breathed, her face buried in the crook of his neck, inhaling his scent like something warm and earthy: his smell. 

And she couldn’t help but smile. 

Meanwhile, he rested his chin on her head, being careful of not hurting her with his plates. His talons stroked her scalp gently. Softly. And he purred. The same rumbling sound she had heard him do before in the Citadel. A content soothing purr.

They stayed there for a while, just synchronized breaths and shared heartbeats. Like the world around them had stopped spinning.

“I am so mad at you…” she muttered, although the tone of her words was soft.

Garrus whole body vibrated when he chuckled quietly at her contradictory statement. “I think you have many things to tell me,” he whispered after some minutes, untangling his talons from her hair.

At his words, Alex reluctantly let him go. “Same as you do…” 

His left mouth plate flared out on a turian crooked grin and she grinned, perhaps happy for the first time in two years. Despite their situation. Despite the threat to their lives.

“I’m gonna make some tea and we can catch up, is that ok?”

“I’ll go with you.”

Garrus gave her a warning glare when she tried to get out of the bed, compelling her to stay there, but she completely ignored him. Slowly, she padded towards a pile of clothes on a chair, basically an oversized black t-shirt and some male human boxers with big red hearts on them. She gave Garrus a questioning gaze, quirking an eyebrow. 

“Oh! Ehm… Mordin said those are his assistant’s clothes. He didn’t have anything else… They’re clean, though.”

“Fair enough… Is better than wandering around on my knickers, I suppose.”

She was already grabbing the t-shirt when Garrus seemed suddenly quite aware of the fact that she was actually only wearing her underwear bottoms and a thin dressing over the wound on her torso. Growing somehow shy and in what looked like an attempt of giving her some privacy, he muttered an unintelligible line and strode out of the bedroom towards the kitchen. 

“ _ At least that hasn’t changed that much, _ ” she grinned with fondness at his awkwardness while doing her best to put the shirt on without moaning too much. 

However, she still felt like if she was about to wake up from a dream. 

Unreal.

After some minutes of struggle, she joined him at the kitchen/living area, sitting on the sofa with her legs folded under herself, as she always did. Garrus was still fumbling around, opening and closing cupboards, and she smiled, understanding that he had no idea where the stuff for making tea was at all. 

“So… How did you end up here,  _ Archangel _ ?”

To her delight, he gave her another crooked grin at his nickname and a cheeky gaze over his shoulder but grew very serious after. “I wanted to change things. For real. The C-Sec is so… strict with its bureaucracy. Pointless and useless. After what happened in the Citadel… And after you left… There was no reason to stay. I needed to do things. I needed to see results. And I needed a change.”

Guiltiness ran down her spine at his words and Garrus looked at her in the eye, the kettle already on.

“No hard feelings, Alexandra. I… kind of understand your disappointment and your reasons. I cannot blame you,” he added after a little while, probably aware of her thoughtful expression. 

After ending Sidonis together, Garrus had followed Shepard to try to save the Council instead of helping Alex - and his C-Sec partners - on the residential areas of the Citadel, where the geth were exterminating innocent people. 

But all that happened a very long time ago...

“And I’m sorry I didn’t say goodbye…” she admitted, her gaze soft under his blue eyes.

There was an unreadable expression on his face that Alex couldn’t figure out. Some sadness or bitterness perhaps? But whatever was happening in his mind, he efficiently hid it from her. Then, he half-grinned and carried on talking. “I thought that Omega could be a good place to begin cleaning up the streets. I fought some mercs on my own. I met Sidonis and we started targeting bigger fish. Before I was aware, I was a celebrity because of my obvious skill and I had a full squad at my command. Damn it… Told like that sounds epical, indeed.”

His tone was witty and easy once again and, even if his statement stuck to the truth, it distilled modesty. 

And Alex had to smile at his recovered sense of humour. She didn’t realize how much she’d missed him.

“But that’s enough talking about me. What about you?” he asked her, walking towards her and handing her one of the cups. He sat on the same sofa, leaving enough space to face her comfortably.

The feeling of familiarity spread warmth in her chest, but it was her turn to speak about painful memories that he deserved to know. Before starting her own story, she took a long inhale, her eyes fixed on the steam swirling up from the cup. Just when she spoke she met his eyes again. 

“You were right: I made a deal with Aria. I needed to find Mordin Solus because he was the only one able to override the locator in my implants. He was under her protection - not anymore though - and she was the only one who knew where he was. So… Yes, I ended up doing things for her that I’m not very proud of. I killed many people. Never innocents, though. But I just killed them because she wanted me to.”

Garrus nodded quietly and, while taking a sip of his tea, she realized with tangible panic how his gaze flickered to the marks that the overstretched t-shirt revealed on her shoulders and neck, on the exact same place he once had marked her. In an uncomfortable gesture, she pulled the collar of the top up, covering them with embarrassment, and averted his eyes. 

Her voice was no more than a shaky whisper although she was trying not to. “ _ This _ … happened five weeks ago, once she knew... She did it to harm you. She thought we were together.”

She hoped he would drop the topic.

But it was Garrus. Of course he would’t.

“Alexandra… It will help that you speak about it with someone. I would gladly listen if you want me to.” His tone was soft and delicate. Soothing. 

His eyes, however… They hinted blind fury first that shifted into endless care when she finally met his gaze again. 

Her heart ached, weary, and the lump in her throat grew until it physically hurt. “There’s nothing to talk about.”

That was not true and she was sure he wouldn’t buy it. He had spent many years working for the C-Sec. He must have seen worse than that. Alex tried not to think of it, her eyes lowering down to her tea again, trying to get lost in the amber liquid.

She heard him exhale quietly. And she appreciated the fact that he didn’t ask any further. “I spoke to Mordin yesterday. He said he will be able to erase the scars once they heal. That will help.”

Alex didn’t know exactly why she kept talking, but she felt on the need to excuse herself. To make clear to him that it was not what he thought. That word she hadn’t been avoiding to think about. 

When she spoke again, her tone was low and cautious. “She didn’t… She didn’t  _ rape _ me. It was just melding. She dug up in my memories, looking for anything about you. The N7 training gets you somehow ready for those sorts of things…”

His voice was still soothing although there was an involuntary hard edge in his subvocals. “According to the regulation 42 on the current Citadel legislation, melding is considered rape if non-consensual...”

A blinding fury clenched her stomach and Alex thought she would be sick if he kept talking. Although he was only speaking the truth. A truth that Alex already knew but she had been trying not to see. 

The fact that she’d been raped.

“Stop it!” Alex shouted at him, cutting him off and startling him. She didn’t need that truth. Not now. “I see that you’re still quite a C-Sec swot. Old habits die hard…” Her tone was hard but it was more a plea than out of rudeness. 

Her breath hitched when he just gazed at her with tenderness and her fury dissipated in an instant. She drowned in a swirl of emotions, her eyes going glassy until her tears spilt out of control, running quietly down her cheeks. Garrus didn’t try to shift closer to comfort her and she genuinely appreciated it. He only held his hand upon the space between them for her to grab it if she needed to. 

And she did. 

She rested her hand in his, loosely weaving her fingers with his, feeling his warm and surprisingly soft hide. A calloused talon pad traced circles on the back of hers with the pressure enough to be comforting without being invasive. 

“Alexandra, it was not your fault.”

She whimpered quietly at the statement. “I know. I don’t feel…  _ raped _ in a sexual way. I just felt helpless. Scared. And furious.” Her voice grew into a hatred growl. “I will kill her for it, I swear...” but the threat was swallowed by a sob.

The minutes went by and they both just remained there, her hand still in his while crying. Caressing her skin with his talon while she let all her helplessness, her fear and anger out. When the tears finally subside, she shifted closer to him and Garrus circled her with his arm. Alex leaned on his chest plates, breathing evenly, enjoying the comforting warm feeling of him and that strange vibration that he emitted. It was soothing still, but there were no traces of contempt and it resembled of the one she heard on Earth so many years ago, when she was dying. 

“I’m sorry this happened to you,” he whispered, subharmonics full of deep tones. 

She didn’t feel any better, but it was a first step: she had let it out. 

“Don’t be sorry. It’s not your fault. I should have accepted your help when you offered it to me. I just didn’t trust you enough…”

“You thought I would actually kill you after all that flirting in the AfterLife?” 

He seemed genuinely surprised and it made her chuckle. “I should have known it was you. You were so awkward!” she teased him, drying the still wet paths of her tears with her hand.

Faking indignant, he straightened up a bit. “And you were just too daring! Damn it… I also should have known it was you, then!”

He never failed to make her smile. 

Alex stirred in his arms and finally sat up, eyes still puffy and red but her heart ached a bit less than before. “What happens now?”

“That’s… a very good question, indeed.” He shifted on the sofa. “You have to stay here today: doctor’s orders. Mordin wanted you to stay for longer, but I think it’s safer if you come to my house. Aria still doesn’t know who I am, but she knows about Mordin. I guess we will have to lie low for a while until things calm down. Then, we will be able to contemplate other options, like how to get yout out of here.”

She nodded, considering if he was also included in those plans or not. “She’s after you too, Garrus. It’s not the time to be cocky...”

“I think I prefer  _ brave _ ...” he wittily retorted. 

Alex replied his joke with a glare and Garrus spoke again. “I know, I know… But my work here is nowhere near finished and I have to strike her down. And you want that, too. We  _ both _ are gonna have to lie low and then… We’ll see, all right?”

That was better. Alex could work with that. At least, she was not alone anymore and that simple fact gave her hope. “Ok… yes. It sounds ok.”

“Good. Mordin must be about to arrive and you have to rest. And I do really need to go home and shower. I think he’s bringing you a new armour. Nothing as fancy as you had before, though. I’ll be back tomorrow morning and we’ll go to my house, ok?”

It might have been the soothing subharmonics, the vibration of his purr or the relief that his words meant. Or perhaps the fact that she had been badly injured the night before. But, suddenly, she felt really tired and ready to go back to sleep. 

Alex nodded her head as an answer and laid down on the sofa, looking at him as he stood up. He took the mugs to the kitchen and Alex heard him gathering his stuff around and putting his armour back on. Her eyes were nearly closed when his steps moved towards the sofa. Garrus covered her with a blanket and his gloved talons tucked a lock of her hair behind her ear with infinite care, probably thinking she was already asleep. 

He hadn’t been misled: Alex didn’t even hear the door when it slid close after him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you liked it ^^


	14. see you at the cafe

Cobalt blue covered her hands and splashed her Rosenkov Materials armour. The one Mordin had gotten for her the day before. Now it was all ruined: shattered in some points, bullet holes all over the torso, scorching marks dotting here and there… An armour that was new just some hours ago.

But the armour was the last thing Alex could think about. Her very last worry. 

That last day had turned out to be a nightmare. A blur of catastrophic events and chaotic occurrences. She couldn’t properly recall everything. Like always, there were gunshots. Headshots. And fire. And missiles. 

There had been _the_ one missile. 

The one that reached him. 

She felt like passing out, feeling her heart pounding in her ears. Feeling sick.

But she could not. She had to be strong. She owed him that. She had to save him. 

That was her mantra while covering what was left of his face with the medigel imbued gauze. 

His blue eyes were glazed, rooming over her shoulder, unfocused.

Alex spoke to him. Told him to hang on. Told Garrus that everything will be all right with a voice far more secure than she was feeling about the outcome. 

On the background, as some sort of white noise, Shepard argued with the biotic woman that came along with her. Then, the other guy made some remarks over their argument. 

About them. About her.

But Alex’s whole attention was on the turian, his friend, that laid injured and bleeding out, on the floor of Archangel’s HQ. 

His HQ. 

Shepard looked at him too, desperation all over her face at the situation. And Garrus stirred slightly, gripping with riffle, emitting a gurgling sound. 

Suddenly, the solution felt obvious. 

“Take him with you! Fuck’s sake, just do it, Shepard. Take him!” Alex shouted, pain and fury contorting her features. 

Her outburst quietened the group definitely. 

“Leave me here, but take him, please…” Alex’s voice was no more than a begging whisper and her sentence ended up a broken under her breath. The lump in her throat, painfully tight. 

She felt desperation tears spilling over her cheeks.

...

Some hours ago, Alex was still at Mordin’s house. She awoke on the sofa, where she had fallen asleep, covered with a blanket and feeling infinitely better. The pain on her ribcage was nearly gone and she didn’t feel tired anymore. Alex stretched and rubbed the remains of sleep from her eyes. Despite their crappy situation, the risk, the danger of having Aria right behind their backs, ready to pounce on them, she had a strange feeling in her chest: life had gifted her with an odd surprise. A _third_ strange opportunity. Some people would call it destiny. Others would say it was just a happy coincidence. But whatever it was, it had been kind enough to bring Garrus back into her life. 

Hope. 

He said that everything would be all right. They would be all right. And she trusted him. From the bottom of her heart, she trusted Garrus as she had ever trusted anyone in years. 

And that stupid feeling spread a warm feeling from her chest and drew a stupid smile on her face. 

Alex put the blanket aside, doing her best to fold it and place it over the arm of the sofa, thinking of him. There were still many things to figure out. For their safety. For their lives. And probably between them, too. And Alex clung to his promise: he would be back tomorrow. For her. And, after everything she had been through, the thought of his presence next to her only brought her relief. 

With a quick look around, she realized that no one was with her in the house. Probably Mordin was still at the clinic, although he had been home for sure: there was a brand new omnitool on the coffee table right in front of her and a bag from one of the armour shops in Omega, being its content very obvious. 

She had everything she would need for the moment. She only had to wait for Garrus to come back. 

Idle, and with nothing better to do, Alex stood up and paced towards the shower, the oversized hearts underwear nearly falling from her hips with each step. She turned the water on and looked at herself on the bathroom’s mirror: a rather funny picture of herself, with those underpants on. However, she avoided her reflection when taking her shirt off and Aria’s biting mark were full in view, bright red. More than obvious over her shoulders and neck. 

The shot wound was just a mere memory of pink over her skin, though.

After showering, lingering under the hot water for quite a long time, she brushed her teeth, dressed with the undersuit that Mordin had also bought for her and sat on the sofa again. Alex retrieved the omnitool from the table, wondering what should she do to kill time. 

It was then when things went to hell.

The onmitool started with a beeping sound and Alex configurated it. And a message popped up, coming from the blog she used to exchange messages with Archangel. 

A thrill of fear ran down her spine. 

The bad feeling sensation intensified the more she thought about it. Something must have happened. Something bad. Otherwise, he wouldn’t risk any communication at all. Plans were crystal clear, why to email her?

With a shaky breath and a trembling finger, Alex opened the message. 

The air left her lungs and bitter bile clambered up her throat. 

She felt she would throw up. 

_My gangs had feasted on Archangel’s squad and are after him now. His HQ will be his tumb._

_PS/Sidonis has been so helpful with his intel, but I had to kill his bitch…_

Alex reread the message. Four. Five times. Eyes wide open, extremely focused on the three sentences that formed it. 

“This cannot be… This cannot be happening…” she mumbled, opening the attached document that was just a simple map of the Kima District with a pin marking a location. The coordinates were right below it: an endless string of painful numbers that meant nothing at all in her foggy mind. 

Alex stood up and paced the room, breathing heavily. “It is a trap. It must be a trap…” she muttered to herself, running a tense hand over her forehead. “But… what if it’s not? What if he’s truly in danger…?” 

Her words were laced with desperation and uncertainty. Her outburst began with a murmur of timid water but grew with the fierceness of the sea. “Shit, shit shit shit!” 

She cried. She slammed the coffee table with a shockwave, full strength, sending it to the other corner of the living room and shattering it into pieces. 

And Alex roared. 

It was a desperation scream. A frustration roar. After everything she had been through. After finding him… Aria was just ending it? No...She would not let her do that. Whatever the gangs intended, Alex would not let them kill him. 

Her whole body shook with blind fury. 

Purple biotics flared in her clenched fists and she had to contain herself of having them blast around herself. 

Alex breathed deeply a couple of times, trying to calm down. She had two options: she could take the bait or she could wait until tomorrow. Wait for him to come back to Mordin’s house. But Aria knew about Sidonis… Why would she know about him? How could she? What about Erash? What about his squad…?

Damn it. There was no way she could communicate with him. But Alex had a gut feeling. A gut feeling telling her that he was in danger. 

That was obviously an ambush, but she couldn’t just do nothing. She had to act. 

In a blur of motion that she couldn’t clearly remember, Alex opened the armour bag and put it on in a hurry. Her Phalanx was still over the kitchen counter, as it had been the day before, and she also grabbed a Kassa Fabrication assault rifle from Mordin’s secret stash, putting some magazines into her armour pockets. 

Before she was fully aware of what she was getting into, she had hired an aircar that stopped in front of the doctor’s house that few to the location Aria T’Loak had sent her. She got off the car some blocks before to have a proper picture of the situation she was getting into. 

And, as soon as she did, she figured out that Aria hadn’t lied: Garrus was there and he was in trouble. 

There were bursts of gunshots. Loud, constant and clear, coming from the parallel street where his HQ was. Rushed steps, mechanic noises, booming grenades and even the unmistakable sound of flying war drones. 

The world moved around her in a whirl of motion, like if she was out of her body, looking at it as in a film. 

With stoic and determined steps, Alex walked towards the combat zone. One step after another, secure and slow. The determination of the condemned. The stoicism of a certain death. 

Once she turned the corner, someone shouted orders at her: a batarian, wearing the Blue Suns armour. He called her a ‘hired-gun’ and she didn’t contradict him. And she joined a group of people that was just there, waiting for instructions. 

No one checked her identity. No one asked her further questions. 

That gave her time to analyze the situation. 

One alleyway that led into a square. A medium-sized but wrecked building at the end of it. All the guns were aiming and she didn’t have to be a genius to deduce that was Archangel’s HQ. 

Alex’s eyes scanned the lines: barricades, Blue Suns, Blood Pack, Eclipse, mechas, heavy weaponry… It seemed that the gangs were on their very best efforts to finish him. The vigilante that had pissed and decimated them during those two long and tortuous years, making them lose men and credits. 

Sporadically, loud single shots were heard, coming from the building and lost on the havoc of the gang attack. But they always found their aim, the unfortunate target dropping dead with a hole on the head after a splash of blood and brain matter.

Garrus was in that building and entering there was suicide. 

She prayed for him not to target her. 

She prayed for being able to reach him in time. 

“Hired-guns, it’s your turn now. Frontal attack. Distract him and, if you kill him, Aria will cover you in gold.”

The simple mention of her name made Alex’s blood boil in fury. 

But no one had realized who she was. It was crazy to think that they were expecting the Shadow to appear with her old armour. Were the gangs really that stupid?

With a completely misplaced feeling of satisfaction with the simple stratagem of changing her armour, Alex protected herself with a biotic barrier and charged when her reckless new companions roared a war cry, running towards the first barricade with their guns high up. 

The krogan on her right dropped dead on the ground after his yellow blood splashed backwards from his head. The same than the human two meters away on her left. 

She didn’t shoot a single bullet, but everyone else did. Bursts of gunfire ricocheted everywhere and in every direction around her without any sort of aim or control. Deafening.

Alex was too far. She had to do it to the building. There were still two more barricades to save.

In a very reckless way, and right after hearing his last shot, she stood from her squatting position and barked the order. “Go!”

And, like in a bad military guerrilla film, the guys still standing ran forwards and towards the second barricade.

A war drone gave them a bit of leverage to make it there, distracting Archangel. Although he was able to shoot it down, too. Alex was nearly reaching the wall of plant pots and concrete blocks when her running was suddenly halted after a loud single shot: one if his bullets reached her.

Her barrier disintegrating and exploding around her and her head felt like stricken by an iron fist, knocking her back; or like bumping into a wall of bricks. Her ears rang at the concussion and the force of the impact made her fall back onto the ground. 

She couldn’t see for some seconds, despite having her eyes open, and felt lightheaded for at least one minute. However, she was able to crawl to the safety of the second barricade, sitting against it, sucking in air. 

Rising a trembling hand to her helmet, she confirmed the piercing pressure shot on it. Luckily, the bullet had deintegrated on her barrier.

Damned turian and his good aim… 

Suddenly she understood that, unless she made a clear sign at him, she would never make it alive into the building. 

Alex looked left and right, her heart thumping in her chest. From the group of 16 that had started, only 9 were still standing. 

Another loud single gunshot. 

Just 8 standing. 

Alex made up her mind and, the next thing she did was the most stupid and dangerous thing she had ever done in her whole life. And she had done many stupid and dangerous things before.

With bullets raining from her rearguard and a very pissed off snipper in the building in front of her, she crouched on the ground and blaster a purple nova that threw everyone flying several meters from her. 

And, then, she ran. 

Protected with a new barrier, she jumped the barricade and sprinted towards Archangel’s HQ, feeling the bullets hitting her back and begging him to understand her rash movement. Alex knew that she wouldn’t be able to endure another of his shots to her head, so she just ran as fast as she could, bullets snapping and buzzing in her ears. 

Ran. 

Ran. 

Ran. 

Until she slammed the door open with a shockwave and threw herself onto the glass-covered floor.

Her heart pounded in her chest and her lungs felt about to explode while seeking the coverage of a column. It still took her some seconds to calm down the spike of adrenaline and to understand that, despite the odds, she was still alive. 

She was in the building and she was safe. 

Until her gaze turned to her left and she discovered the identity of the dead body that laid on the floor in a puddle of blue blood: Mierin. 

Alex’s breath hitched. There were more bodies there. A bloody carnage. Some of them were unknown but some were not. Grundan Kul, Ripper and Melenis were down. Dead. Just some steps ahead.

Alex stood up and walked slowly towards the stairs, her gaze lingering over the scattered corpses with insane intensity. 

She distinguished the blue, red and yellow armour of the merc groups but, to her sorrow, some well-known faces too: Butler and Monteague, the human mercs that worked with Archangel.

Her stomach clenched at the sight of their broken bodies, bullet wounds and wide-open eyes. She barely knew them but Alex was immediately worried about Garrus. What had happened to the rest of his men? Were they all dead? Were any of them still alive?

The lights flickered when she reached the stairs and the banging of the bullets followed her all the way up the first floor. Single loud shots coming in regular intervals: a sniper rifle. 

Weaver’s body was at the top of the stairs over a puddle of crimson blood, eyes open and glazed over, staring at the horizon. She was still gripping her assault rifle: the same one Alex had seen her use so many times before. 

She heard another shot right when she reached the closed door. There were some more dead mercs there, mostly Eclipse, piled up against the entrance. Adrenaline flooded her body once again, wondering what would be the best way to open that damned door and not dying on the attempt. Alex retrieved her Phalanx, checked the clip and wriggled her fingers on the grip. Her shoulders were painfully tense, every muscle of her body wound up by the tension and stiff. But she had to open that door and get into that room. 

And she did. 

Sneaking in was not an option, but it wasn’t either to burst in. So she just grabbed the handle and pulled it open as she would have done any normal day visiting that place. 

What she saw was Dantesque, once again. Bodies piled up next to the entrance, riddled with bullets, and the stench of gunpowder, ferrous blood and body fluids was strong enough to make any experienced soldier throw up with disgust. 

Again, krogan, vorcha, humans, batarian and turians from the different gangs in Omega with decomposed and pained expressions, their faces, some of them without helmets, contorted in pain and silent screams. 

And, in the middle of the enemy bodies, again two known faces: Vortash and Sensat. 

Alex gasped at the sight of the batarian who had joined her on their mission in the AfterLife. Apart from Sidonis, one of Archangel’s best friends. Now, he laid dead on the floor. His expression, not that different from any other of the gang mercs around him. 

Her stomach clenched again painfully, and Alex felt she would throw up. She took her helmet off in a hurry and retched all the contents of her stomach on the side of the room. 

She. The Lieutenant who had witnessed batarian slavers torturing and killing whole families. The ruthless soldier who had fought against the geth in the Citadel, where so many lives were lost. Alexandra Murphy, the teenager who had survived the nearly-extermination of the human race was vomiting like a recruit. 

Only when she was able to compose herself again saw how Garrus gave her a gaze over his shoulder, still shooting non-stop. 

If he was surprised to see her there, he didn’t even mention it. Instead, his voice was hoarse, harsh and stern when he spoke to her. “What are you doing here, Alexandra? Why did you come?” 

Alex stepped towards the broken window and tossed her helmet aside, getting onto her knee and retrieving her rifle, aiming at the alley ahead where the gangs still were targeting him. “And let you keep all the fun to yourself? Never.”

Even if she had intended for her reply to be easy, it didn’t sound like it, each word heavy and melancholic. She also began shooting. 

Garrus blinked his eyes and cracked his neck sideways, his stare still focused through the telescopic sight. “I fucking shot you, Alexandra! _Spirits_ … What if…? Shit! I didn’t know it was you! I would have never forgiven myself…”

His subharmonics were weak. Just a thin echo on a shortwave that didn’t produce enough vibration to be perceived. A clear sign that Garrus was exhausted. 

“Stop it. You need more than a shot to stop me. You should know that. But very good aim, though… I never thought you were such a good sniper.”

Her retort didn’t have the expected response, as Garrus didn’t bother to reply. His face was focused, grave and as serious as she had ever seen him. Mourning. Probably in shock. His whole squad was dead in that building. He was the only survivor and she hadn’t seen Sidonis body anywhere. Had he really set him up? Did he know? 

“Garrus… Sidonis…” she began. 

“I know. And I will kill him with my own bare hands...”

He shot again, his mandibles flaring out with rage, a line of sharp predator teeth on full display. His harmonics thrummed with a frozen fury this time, and the bold statement made Alex flinch because she knew he would do it. He would kill Sidonis for his treason. 

Garrus shot again and blinked repeatedly, giving a small break to his eyes and finally turned his head to look at her. But Alex was expressionless. She couldn’t say any word at all that could alleviate the seriousness of the situation they had gotten themselves into. “We are screwed up, aren't’ we?”

Archangel scoffed bitterly. “We are, indeed… Why the hell did you come here, Alexandra?”

She met his icy blue eyes for a while, delaying her answer. Until she could not hold it any more. “Because you are my friend, Garrus. Because you saved me so many times that I feel the need to reciprocate. And because I do care about you...”

There was a short halt on the gang advance while one of the leaders barked orders at his group and they both, Garrus and Alexandra, stared at each other in the eye: an illegible expression mixed with tenderness and gratitude. 

And perhaps with something far much deeper than that. 

It was the human who crawled closer to him, bridging the couple of metres that separated them and tipped his head down with one of her hands at the nape of his neck. She brought their foreheads together and closed her eyes, enjoying their connection, the fleeting silence and peaceful moment of calm before their mistakes led them inevitably to their death. 

“Garrus, if we don’t make it… I just want to say _thank you_. For everything.”

Alex was so close to his mouth that she felt his breath when he sighed, drawing a thin smile to his mandibles. “You are welcome, I suppose… Although there’s no need. Whatever happens next, I’ll see you at the cafe.”

It was Alex’s turn to smile, recalling those easy days in the Citadel when they were just a C-Sec burnt-out agent and a renegade Alliance Lieutenant. Easier times. 

“I’ll wait for you there.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading guys!!! I wish I had more time to write, but real life is a bit manic at the moment. The order on this one is a bit altered, but we all know how this ends, right?  
> I hope you liked it. See you next week with the end! ^^


	15. overcoming

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This last chapter dedicated to @Mackeyla88 and the infinite kindness and enthusiasm of her comments. Thanks you!!! 💜💜💜

Omega was disgusting. There was no corner that didn’t smell like shit or no alley without plastered aliens throwing up their guts. That place was just like a constant ‘night out’ full of brawls, drugs and alcohol. 

Confident steps led Shepard towards the AfterLife entrance. She needed to find the asari that controlled and supervised all the movements there. She was the goddess. The puppeteer in the shadows that ruled over the general debauchery of that place: Aria T’Loak. 

According to Cerberus, she was the only one who would be able to point her into the correct direction to find Archangel. But Shepard didn’t have a plan on how to address the issue. Perhaps mentioning her Spectre status? Or the fact that she was the one who ended up Saren at the Citadel? Because telling her that she had just risen up from the death was out of the question…

Shepard had woken up in a facility having been brought back from the dead but, in truth, she was no more than a prisoner. Her situation was complicated for various reasons, beginning with the fact that she had been dead for two years. 

Dead and buried. 

The Illusive Man had brought her back to life with a clear aim: save the galaxy from the threat of the Reapers, as the Citadel Council had done nothing during those two years to stop them. Not even to locate them. Damn! She still cannot believe she had to team up with Cerberus in order to get things done. 

Miranda and Jacob, her watchdogs, walked a few bodies behind her while heading the club as she could hear the dull sound of their steps. She contained a snarl when, after being thoroughly padded down by the bouncer, had to leave her assault rifle in the ‘wardrobe’. Although she understood the precaution. 

Once her ‘companions’ were cleared up too, they crossed the doors. Sofas lined up at the sides of the corridor and the sound of electronic music was now deafening. The darkness around was comfortable, though, and she couldn’t avoid thinking how her face would look like with those glowing scars on it. 

“Commander, are you ok?” Jacob asked her when she halted her steps in front of the access doors. 

“Yes. Just fine. Let’s finish this and get out of here” Shepard replied, not looking at the mercenary man, before pushing the heavy doors open and plunging into the club.

The primal beat of the music welcomed and surrounded them. It was dark enough to make everyone look attractive and asari dancers offered their flexibility and gracefulness to everyone who was able to tip them for a lap dance.

Shepard scanned the packed place with narrowed eyes until she seemed to find what she was looking for. “Follow me” she ordered over the music before walking with decisive steps towards the stairs that lead, for sure, to the VIP area because of the security guards. 

Once she was in front of the batarian dressed in black armour who was protecting the access, she spoke firmly. “I want to see Aria” 

“And who the hell are you?” he asked with a hoarse voice.

“I’m Commander Shepard. And I need to speak to her”. 

The batarian chuckled, full of sarcasm. “Commander Shepard is dead...” he mentioned lightly, dismissing them with a gesture of his head.

But Shepard hadn’t come that far to be dismissed that easily. “Put to work that damn omnitool of yours and scan me! Check who I am before I have to kick your arse...” she ordered with a bossy tone.

Not extremely impressed and with a fully apathetic face, Aria’s personal security guard did as he was told and scanned the human from head to toe. 

His four eyes opened wide when her identity was finally confirmed. 

“Ok, you go in. But they have to wait here,” he finally accepted, moving to the side to let her go past him. 

Jane Shepard resumed her march without looking at her partners while a really annoyed Miranda uttered a row of rude complaints that had little effect either on Shepard or the guardsman. After the steps, she arrived at a medium-sized room, black leather sofas forming a square in the middle of it. An asari was sitting on the one against the windowpane with a sardonic smirk on her face, waiting for her. 

“Well, seeing is believing… It seems that the dead had begun to rise from their tombs...” Her words were full of snark but she looked far less impressed than she should have been, considering Shepard was a dead galaxy war hero. 

“Aria T’Loak, I assume. Nice to meet you, too. I’ve been told you are the person to ask in this place if I am looking for someone, is that right?”

Aria scoffed. “That depends on who you are looking for...” she retorted, enigmatically.

“But you run Omega, you must know...” 

Shephards’ sentence was cut off short when the asari stood up and turned to face the windowpane, bathing on the impressive view of her club. 

“I _am_ Omega. But I bet you need more. Everyone needs more. I’m the boss of this place, the CEO, the queen if you are feeling dramatic. And there’s just a rule: don’t fuck with Aria”.

“Well, nice slogan,” Shepard replied diplomatically, without any sort of pun intended. “I’m not here to cause trouble. I just need to locate two people: doctor Mordin Solus and Archangel”. 

At the mention of the second name, the asari snorted loudly. 

“ _Not to find trouble_ , you say. And you come here looking for Archangel?” her tone was wry and she shook her head with the smirk of someone who has the leverage of information. “Mordin should be easy to find. He is in the slums, operating a clinic. But yesterday some sort of virus was unleashed there, a sort of a plague, and the whole suburb is under quarantine. Humans are immune, by the way. You can try to make your way in there. I suppose you have military force for it. I doubt Dr Solus wants to leave until the plague is over”.

“And what about Archangel?” Shepard tried again.

But Aria just shook her head with a manic grin on her lips. “I want him dead.” The expression and the tone of Aria were harsh and crazy enough to understand that the guy had really pissed her off somehow. 

But, according to the Illusive Man, she needed him. And no one, not even that asari, would mess with the salvation of the universe.

“Just tell me where he is, I won’t interfere...”

The asari chuckled wryly and shook her head. “It’s too late for him already and for the other bitch, too. But, if you are keen on recovering his body, go to Kima District and follow the gunfire.”

Well, whoever that guy was, he had obviously pissed Aria badly. 

“Why do you want him dead?” Shepard wanted to know.

“Long story… A very long one. The only thing you should know is that it’s a shared feeling with everyone in this place.”

Curiosity made her want to ask further, but Shepard contained herself. Perhaps that was not the best moment to stir up whatever was going on between Archangel and Aria.

“As I said before, he must be dead already. Have fun collecting the pieces of what is left of them.”

An icy and manic stare from the asari marked the end of the conversation and Shepard understood that it was her cue to disappear. While she stepped down towards the ground level of the AfterLife she wondered what the heck Aria had meant by _them_.

***

They didn’t have much time left and the prospect of a new wave of enemies seemed exhausting. Especially now, inhaling her scent, feeling her soft skin on his plates, the warmth of her touch… Garrus had to drag himself away from Alex and force the grip on his sniper rifle once again.

He had so many plans… So many things he wanted to show her. To explore with her. To discover together… He hadn’t been able just yet to believe the fact that he had found her after all those years when everything had gone to hell again.

“ _Sidonis… Fucking son of a bitch… I’ll find you and I’ll kill you…_ ” Garrus thought while taking the telescopic sight to his eye level. 

_Breath in. Aim. Shoot. Breath out._

The only sounds around were the paced gunshots of her rifle at his left. She was not the best snipper, to be honest, and Garrus scoffed bitterly at the thought of how interesting would have been to teach her some technique.

Perhaps in another life…

He shot again, the instinct of staying alive stronger than his need to give up. Stronger than his shock and his grief. 

But utterly pointless. 

A new batch of ‘hired-weapons’ made their appearance. Clumsy, stupid and reckless people who didn’t give a shit about him, but they were tempted by the money Aria was offering for their heads. 

Garrus wondered how much it was while watching the third of them drop dead after one of his bullets pierced his helmet, dark blue blood splashing behind his head. 

However, they were too many. Too fast and too powerful. 

Alex grunted something when some of them reached the insides of the building. He heard steps on the ground floor. Then, she shouted something that was blurred in his auditory canal but he deduced that had something to do with their tactics. 

But then, she stood up and Garrus nearly choked when she threw the rifle away, retrieving her Phalanx from her holster, and turning on her heels, just leaving him there. 

In a quick motion, Garrus grabbed her wrist with bruising strength. “Where the hell are you going?” His subvocals gave away his alarm, not fully understanding her manoeuvre. 

“You’re better at long distance than me. I’ll deal with the ones downstairs,” she said, jerking her arm away from his grip and running towards the stairs before he couldn’t get her back. “Keep shooting!”

Alex disappeared through the door and Garrus cursed and growled loudly, frustrated. He shot again, although his senses were focused on the battle downstairs. 

Three, four… Five headshots. 

On the ground level there were _woosh_ of biotics, and bursts of bullets. And screams. Many many screams. 

Until he heard the rushed run and Alex burst into the room he was in. Panting heavily, she shut the door behind her with biotics and pushed one of the sofas in front of it, blocking the only entrance and their only escape. 

“What’s going on?” Garrus asked over his shoulder, his eye focused through the telescopic sight. 

His neck was starting to hurt badly. His vision was blurred with the effort. Only his survival instinct kept him going. 

“Biotics… She’s powerful, but it’s ok. I’ll take care of her,” Alex replied, her breath laboured. Although she sounded far less secure than she should have. 

On a quick motion between aiming, Garrus retrieved his assault rifle, ready to pivot towards the door if Alex needed him, but remained focused on defending the bridge. 

Biotics flared and a purple flash flooded the room. There was a strange smell afterwards and he felt a ticklish sensation on the back of his neck hive. Like electricity. 

“Alex?” he asked, looking swiftly over his shoulder. 

The human had formed a wall of purple biotic energy against the door and was holding it in place against whatever was trying to enter from the other side. 

But a new bunch of enemies were making their way through the bridge and he had to go back to shoot at them. 

Then, there was a loud bang and it sounded like there was an elephant charging against the door. 

“Shit! Alex, what is going on?”

A feral grunt was her only reply and worry stiffened his muscles. Before he could turn back, there was another deafening blast and the whole metallic door was blown up from the hinges, flying across the room and smashing the window pane. 

Garrus couldn’t locate Alex before he had to take cover from the glass daggers that poured everywhere around him. 

His heart stopped. “ _Spirits... Where is she? Where is she!?_ ” He quickly swapped his sniper for the assault rifle and scanned the smashed entrance from behind his cover.

Someone coughed under a pile of wrecked furniture that the blast had destroyed. 

“ _Alexandra… Shit, she might be hurt…._ ”

Three figures made their way into the room, stepping on the debris, barely visible under a cloud of dust and smoke. 

There was an acrid smell that could only be some sort of explosive: they have blown up the door. 

Suddenly, a human shape that could only be Alexandra pounced over one of the female figures with a feral scream, pushing her back and against the wall and immobilizing her there with biotics. With a last growl, his friend unholstered her Phalanx and aimed at her prey’s head, ready to shoot. 

But a wary voice stopped her. “No! Murphy!? What the hell….!?”

_Spirits… That voice…_

The dust settled slightly and Garrus, utterly confused, saw Alexandra looking at the middle figure, a human female, bewildered. She approached Alexandra with her hands raised in a peaceful sign. Despite the non-violent gesture, he aimed at the new-comers and the only man of the group mirrored him immediately, raising his gun at him.

Alexandra just stared at them, blood streaming from her forehead and covered in grey dust. Breathing with effort, she still had the strength to hold the other woman trapped against the wall. Her expression was difficult to read for Garrus, but if he would have had to guess, he would have said that Alexandra was baffled. 

“Well, I have to admit that this is not what I was expecting at all…” the woman new-comer admitted, sounding more than bewildered too.

 _“No… It’s impossible…”_ he thought, completely gobsmacked at the realization of who they had in front. Of who had turned up to rescue them.

“Shepard?” Alexandra asked, her voice hoarse and breathy. 

“Tell her to let me go!” the woman pinned on the wall kicked her legs and struggled with Alex’s grip, but she utterly ignored her.

And then, it happened. The unknown woman took her helmet off. 

And it was Shepard. Jane Shepard in the flesh. Oddly alive, red hair, green eyes, same facial features… and eerie glowing scars across her face.

At the impression of the appearance, Garrus scoffed with disbelief and dropped his rifle and Alex let the other human go.

“Are you Archangel?” Shepard asked Alexandra, utterly confused. 

Not that Alex seemed to be in a better state, staring back at her as if she had seen a ghost. 

It was time for Garrus to intervene, as Shepard seemed still oblivious at his presence there. “I am Archangel.”

Shepard turned around to face him and her face expressed pure and genuine surprise and, if she would have had to guess, relief. “Garrus? Oh my God! What are you doing here in Omega? And how did you manage to piss all the gangs?”

“It wasn’t easy… But I’m not the only one to blame for that,” he admitted with some remains of sarcasm in his subvocals, tilting his head slightly towards Alexandra.

The woman that came with Shepard stood up with some difficulties, palming her throat over the armour, and eyed Alex warily. “What’s the plan now? All the gangs are after them. Are we just gonna stay here and kill them all?” she complained with disdain, her words laced with scorn.

But she was damn right… Despite Shepard being there, being a powerful ally, Garrus reckoned that they were still quite screwed up. 

Although there was still hope… He wanted to survive.

Alexandra met his eyes briefly and he saw that same resolution in his warm brown gaze. Both looked at Shepard when she spoke again. “If we work together, we might actually have a chance.”

  
***

Alex’s biotics were far exhausted at that point but, even so, she kept fighting alongside Shepard, the stupid human and the other guy: first defending and turning on the vent ducts and clearing the ground floor later. 

Their plan was as stupid and reckless as Garrus and hers had been before. But more people meant more chances to survive, especially now that the gang’s numbers were diminished. 

They actually stood a chance, fighting together, and she couldn’t believe it.

Until that damn gunship piloted by Tarak, the leader of the Blue Suns appeared, sputtering and short-circuiting thanks to Shepard’s doing. 

But it had only needed a parted second. Just a blink to launch the missiles that, with a hiss, had impacted the first floor, blowing up the remains of what was left of Archangel’s headquarters. 

Coughing, bleeding and wounded, all the humans kept riddling the damn thing with all the bullets they had left in their weapon’s chambers. 

And, after a little while and a well-aimed shot of Shepard’s missile launcher, the aircraft exploded into fireworks of victory, finally taken down. 

Alex dropped on the floor, exhausted. Relieved. 

The man congratulated Shepard while the other woman stepped towards one of the massive holes on the crumbling walls, examining the bridge.

“It seems clear enough. Time to go.” 

Alex breathed deep in and gazed around, searching for Garrus with a tired grin on her chapped lips. 

She couldn’t find him. 

Sudden terror clenched in her stomach. 

“Garrus?” Alex called him aloud, her voice strained by fear.

The whole group turned to look at her. 

Until she heard the gurgling sound at her left, hidden behind what once was a sofa. 

She darted there and her breath hitched, sudden pain jolting her body like it was struck by lightning. 

Garrus was laying on the floor, on his right side, under a mass of glass, concrete, debris and what looked like broken chunks of turian plates. Cobalt blue blood had started to pool under his head. 

Alex’s heart stopped.

“Garrus! Shit, shit, fuck…” she muttered, rushing to his side and falling onto her knees, trying to control her panic to evaluate the seriousness of his injuries. 

She touched him with shaking hands and he groaned in pain, although she was not sure if he was actually conscious. 

“Damn it, Garrus… You can’t do this to me… Not now…” Alex begged while retrieving her omnitool to scan his body.

Shepard appeared next to her, perhaps too shocked to react. 

The scan didn’t reveal internal bleeding, but two bullet wounds on his torso - not life-threatening. No broken spine or bones. But his face… The right side of his face and upper torso seemed to have suffered a massive trauma injury, probably delivered by a rocket impact. Also, there was a large open wound on the right side of his neck that compromised important blood vessels. 

He was bleeding out. After everything they’d been through, he was dying in front of her.

Helplessness tears rolled down her cheeks. 

Alex turned him on his back and heard Shepard gasp at the extension of his injury. 

His cobalt blue blood covered her hands and splashed her Rosenkov Materials armour. The one Mordin had gotten for her the day before. Now it was all ruined. The same as his. But the armour was the last thing Alex could think about. Her very last worry. 

She felt like passing out, feeling her heart pounding in her ears. Feeling sick. But she could not. She had to be strong. She owed him that. She had to save him. 

That was her mantra while covering what was left of his face with the medigel imbued gauze and applying pressure over his neck, barking at Shepard to kneel down and help her. 

Despite all her efforts, Garrus's blue eyes were glazed, gazing over her shoulder, unfocused. 

Alex spoke to him. Begged him to hold on. Told him that everything will be all right with a voice far more secure than she was feeling about the outcome. 

In the background, as some sort of white noise, Shepard argued with the woman that came with her. About them. About her. 

Their words were muffled in her ears. Barely white noise. But Alex got enough of them to understand what it was taking so long for Shepard to call for help. 

“She was not on the list, we cannot take her. We have a protocol to meet and the instructions have been quite clear… I cannot let you bring her to the ship.”

“What the hell do you suggest, then? These people will kill her! We have no choice!”

Then, the other guy made some remarks over their argument. “You have seen her how she fights. She could be an asset...”

“This is not what the Illusive Man had planned. Everyone in the Alliance knows her: the runaway. And she’s bad at taking orders.”

It seemed that her reputation preceded her once again. 

Shepard looked at her, desperation written all over her face at the gridlocked situation. And Garrus stirred slightly, gripping his rifle, emitting a gurgling sound. 

There’s only one obvious solution. She couldn’t let him die. She would not.

“Take him with you! For fuck’s sake, just do it, Shepard. Take him!” Alex shouted, pain and fury contorting her features. 

Her outburst quietened the group’s argument. 

“Leave me here, but take him, please…” Alex’s voice was no more than a begging whisper and her sentence ended up broken with a sob. The lump in her throat, painfully tight, didn’t let her continue begging for his life. 

Desperation tears spilt quietly down her cheeks.

The man looked at her, pitiful. The woman gave her a stern glare. 

Shepard exhaled slowly. “No. We’re not leaving anyone behind. You are coming with us, Murphy. And that’s an order.” Shepard glared at her female companion before growling at her. “We’ll discuss _this_ situation later, once we are _all_ out of this place.” 

The man called the _Normandy_ for an emergency extraction and Alex sighed with relief, leaning down to touch his forehead plate with hers. 

“Garrus, just hold on… Everything will be all right…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's all, folks!  
> Thanks for following Alex's and Garrus' adventures.  
> Thanks for the kudos, the comments, the subscriptions and the bookmarks. And even more for reading.  
> See you around, soon!!!

**Author's Note:**

> Don't forget to leave kudos or comments if you liked it. Or if you want more ❤❤❤  
> ***  
> Follow me on Tumblr [AnaVakarian](https://anavakarian.tumblr.com/)  
> ***  
> 


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